







































































































































































































































































































































































































































































V 






r 


\ 












He bent and kissed her, and because the kiss was illicit, Malvern 
thrilled to his finger tips. 




PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


BY 

J. WESLEY PUTNAM , pmd 

AUTHOR OF “WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE” 

£ ~p)rc)CfOj Wurrtj Sinclair * 


Frontispiece by 
DELOS PALMER, Jr. 


THE MACAULAY COMPANY 

NEW YORK 




\ 


Copyright, 1924 

By THE MACAULAY COMPANY 


Printed in the United States of America 


OCT -8 24 

) Cl A 8 0 7 2 5 6 





“Women are like pictures: of no value in 
the hands of a fool till he hears men of 
sense bid high for the purchase.” 









CONTENTS 


PART ONE 

CHAPTER PAGB 

I Her Name in Lights .... 9 

II Gossip. 16 

III A Man of Millions .... 22 

IV “Money Ain’t Everything” . . 29 

V “I Love Him So”.34 

VI Renee Grant, the Dancer . . 39 

VII “How Can You Ask?” ... 47 

VIII The Message in the Cup ... 52 

IX Scandal.60 

X Flaming Fires ...... 67 

XI Desire.73 

PART TWO 

XII Pierre Ducharme.79 

XIII Bound to the Soil ..... 85 

XIV Anne Changes Her Mind ... 99 

XV New Arrivals.105 

XVI Deep Water .in 

XVII “Let Me Be in Time” . : . . 121 

XVIII “He’s a Man”.129 

vii 













CONTENTS 


viii 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIX “I Had to Come” ..... 134 

XX A Rogue’s Progress . . . . 14 1 

XXI Bitter Fruit .... e . 148 

XXII Temptation ....... 161 

XXIII Out of Reach ...... 172 

XXIV The Flaming Forest . . K . 181 

XXV Chance.193 

XXVI A Race for Life . . . ., . 205 

XXVII Farewell . t .212 

PART THREE 

XXVIII Easy Money.224 

XXIX A Confidential Mission^ . . . 233 

XXX An Interrupted Luncheon . . 239 

XXXI Revelation.246 

XXXII Guilty. .258 

XXXIII Cherchez la Femme .... 269 

XXXIV Gloria Meets Renee . w . . 276 

XXXV To Save a Life.283 

XXXVI At Cabot Manor.289 

XXXVII The Truth at Last . . . . 298 

XXXVIII Anne Confesses . . m . . 308 

XXXIX “I Have Ducharme” m . 313 

















PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 




























1 / 




1 





1 






> 







PART ONE 

CHAPTER I 

HER NAME IN LIGHTS 

There were traditions in Gloria Dawn’s family 
of stage-folk, all actors of note—cousins, uncles 
and her own famous mother—an aristocracy of 
the theater. Society lowered the bars to her, 
and it is not often that an individual is a person 
of importance on both Broadway and Fifth 
Avenue. 

Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensellear and other 
famous matrons had actually been eager to 
sponsor her, for they found her as captivating 
off the stage as on it. Professionally, however, 
Gloria had dwelt in semi-obscurity until last 
evening. 

Overnight a miracle had been wrought. 
Without knowing it, she had bridged the gulf 

9 


10 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


between being just “Celia Dawn’s daughter”— 
and fame. The task had taken two hours and 
twenty minutes. Tired, but blissfully ignorant 
of this great moment in her life, Gloria had 
closed her eyes to dream of the future. 

It was morning now—nine o’clock—an un¬ 
seemly hour for Broadway, and yet the elec¬ 
tricians of the Adelphi had stormed the side¬ 
walk in front of the theater with ladders and 
bulbs and a seemingly hopeless assortment of 
letter units for the big electric sign above the 
entrance. Magic of a sort was theirs, however, 
and in their skilful hands the big block letters 
moved back and forth until order replaced 
chaos—and lo! a name appeared—GLORIA 
DAWN! 

GLORIA DAWN 
in 

AFTER THE RAIN 

That was the cryptic message the great sign 
now proclaimed. 

The two men paused to glance up at their 


HER NAME IN LIGHTS 


ii 


handiwork when they had gathered together 
their baskets and ladders. There was some¬ 
thing of awe in their eyes, for they knew what 
they had done—that they had placed another 
star on high to shine in the theatrical firma¬ 
ment. 

The dust of Broadway had hardly begun to 
settle upon the new incandescents before a car 
drew up and Gloria stepped out. She gasped 
as she gazed at the sign . . . Her name in 
lights! She wanted to cry out! . . . laugh! 
Abe had done this—made her a star! With a 
warm smile she pressed a five dollar bill into the 
chauffeur’s palm. She could have given him 
her purse. 

Abe was upstairs in his office., Jimmie Ryan, 
his “press” man, and Rhodes, the author of the 
play, were with him. They were re-reading 
the morning “notices.” Abe cocked his head at 
the sound of footsteps on the stairs. The next 
moment Gloria flung open the door. 

“Abe! Abe!” she cried, throwing her arms 


12 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


around him. “What a wonderful, wonderful 
surprise! I could kiss you!” 

“Well, honey, I ain’t saying I’d stop you,” he 
laughed boyishly. “You’re happy, huh?” 

“Too happy for words, Abe! And it’s really 
a hit?” 

“A solid hit,” he answered solemnly. “I’m 
afraid it is,” he added almost mournfully. 

The others did not smile; they understood 
that it was his way of saying that he hoped— 
that he believed —it was a “solid hit.” 

“I couldn’t a written better notices myself,” 
he went on. “But,” with a pessimistic pursing 
of the lips, “I don’t go too much on notices. 
The best ones in the world didn’t save The 
Bright Flower for me last year.” 

Jimmie Ryan knew as much, but he was a 
publicity man—and cold print deceived him, as 
was fitting, perhaps. 

“Listen to this,” he exclaimed: “ 'Superla¬ 
tives often come back to mock us, but we will 
never claim an alibi for saying that we have 


HER NAME IN LIGHTS 


13 


never seen such beauty in the theater as 
charmed us last night as Gloria Dawn wove 
her web about the luckless captain in After the 
Rain. The play is a good play—maybe a great 
play—we do not know right now; but Gloria 
Dawn is the most bewitching creature in New 
York!’ ” Jimmie shook his head as he finished 
reading the paragraph. “That’s the best notice 
ever written in the Algonquin Hotel,” he de¬ 
clared. “Think of that stuff stripped!” He 
whistled his wonder of it. 

“But the lights, Abe?” Gloria queried. 

“You deserved them, honey,” he exclaimed 
with a toss of his head. He turned to the 
author. “Am I right, Rhodes ?” 

Rhodes was very well pleased with himself. 
He suspected that he had had more to do with 
Gloria’s success than the newspapers gave him 
credit for. But no matter! Here was suc¬ 
cess, and in the first thrill of it he was not one 
to deny Gloria her conquest. 

“Of course!” he exclaimed, and then to 


i 4 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Gloria: “As I said last night, you were superb. 
I know we have a big success. Abe and I owe 
a lot to you. By the way, it was nice of old 
Crane to recall your mother’s many triumphs, 
wasn’t it ?” 

“It was fine of him,” said Gloria. “He liked 
the play. I never knew him to unbend so be¬ 
fore. But he is mistaken about my three years 
in stock—it was five!” 

Five long years of everything from “bits” 
to “leads.” And still, looking back, it seemed 
not to have been too great a price to have paid. 

Life suddenly blossomed into a flower of such 
surpassing loveliness that Gloria actually grew 
faint at times with the wonder of it. 

She was extravagantly happy; but, with suc¬ 
cess, financial demands which she had never 
dreamed of began to be made on her. Abe 
raised her salary time after time, but it no more 
than kept step with her needs, for she found 
herself confronted with a never-ending round 


HER NAME IN LIGHTS 15 

of engagements which necessitated clothes and 
clothes and still more clothes. She knew that 
the Dawns, for all their blue-bloodedness, had 
shared the average actor’s lot of never being 
able to make both ends meet. It made her 


pause* 


CHAPTER II 


GOSSIP 

Gloria’s mother caught her daughter’s con¬ 
cern and waved it aside. Celia Dawn had lived 
for these very golden days, and she would not 
hear of economies. 

“Mr. ‘B.’ wants you, dearest,” she told 
Gloria. “He told me yesterday that he hoped 
to get Barrie to do a play for you. Think of 
that—Barrie! But Abe will not let you go. 
He can and will pay you three times what he 
is giving you now. And the pictures—why I 
saw Dolph at Marjorie’s opening. He offered 
me a perfectly staggering contract if you would 
go West this summer. I did not give him any 
encouragement; the pictures will have to wait. 
But don’t worry about the money you are 
spending, dearest; the managers are going to 
pay, and pay, and pay.” 

16 


GOSSIP 


17 

Naturally, with the sponsoring Gloria had, 
it was not possible to keep the eligible young— 
and middle-aged—men away from her. Mrs. 
Van Rensellear had no intention of trying 
to do so and she very promptly said as 
much. 

“She is the smartest, dearest, most compell- 
ingly chic thing that ever stood in French heels; 
and if there is a good catch this season—which 
I doubt—she is going to have him.” 

“And with your flair for such things!” Mrs. 
Hobbs, of the Remington-Hobbses of Wash¬ 
ington and New York, declared rather point¬ 
edly, “I presume that Jim Malvern will be the 
man.” 

“It’s a good name,” Mrs. Van answered 
bluntly. “There is money there; but I suspect 
that Jim is a rotter at heart. All men are, of 
course.” 

“Still, he is capable. He’s in politics now, 
too.” 

Mrs. Van smiled superiorly. Jim Malvern 


18 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


was in railroads; politics was just part of that 
business. 

Mrs. Remington-Hobbs had little or no 
reason for mentioning Malvern in connection 
with Gloria. True, a whisper—just a whisper 
—had reached her ears to the effect that he 
had been seen at more than one performance 
of After the Rain . . . And Malvern’s taste in 
the theater did not run to light comedy—with¬ 
out music, that is. But as for the season’s 
“catch”? Why Jim Malvern had been angled 
for these four years past! In fact, Anice Mal¬ 
vern had no sooner divorced him to marry an 
English viscount than Carrie Hilton and the 
elder of the Wharton girls had set sail after 
Jim. Others tried where they had failed, but 
without success; Jim Malvern was not to be 
trapped. And yet, women interested him—a 
certain type of women. But that concerned 
Central Park West, rather than Central Park 
East. However, with the passing years the 
Malvern fortune had doubled. In his clubs, 


GOSSIP 


i9 


Jim won the reputation of being a pretty solid 
sort of a man. The title “railroad king” was 
a vulgarism, and a bit trite, too; but in secret 
men wondered about Malvern. They knew he 
was a “big” man, that he had the backing of 
Steinhart, of J. J. Ives—and that meant the 
biggest money in the Street. John Sebastian 
Cabot, the newly elected governor, was a Mal¬ 
vern man—Malvern-made for the matter of 
that. Yes, Jim could go a long way if he chose 
to. 

His cousin, Mrs. Jack Bloodgood, saw no 
virtue in the man, however. 

“It’s not within reason for a Malvern to be 
so completely engrossed in anything as Jim pre¬ 
tends to be in his business,” once declared the 
“Vixen of Fifth Avenue,” to give Mrs. Jack 
her well-won title. “He is getting old enough 
to be foolish and I suspect that he is. Forty is 
a susceptible age, my dear, for any man; and 
for a widower? . . . Well! Thank God, the 
man has a proper sense of discretion. I only 


20 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


pray that he keeps himself out of the illustrated 
papers until Eve married off my girls. These 
dancing creatures actually have children by our 
husbands now—a sort of life insurance for 
them, you know—and it , s awfully inconvenient 
for us. I trust Jim will stop short of that.” 

The youthful Mrs. Chickering, to whom this 
bit of gossip was told, arched her eyebrows in¬ 
quiringly. 

“Oh, I could mention names if I chose to,” 
Mrs. Jack assured her. “Jim doesn’t fool me. 
I’ve seen his car standing in front of a certain 
apartment house too many times not to have 
been curious to know who Jim was attentive 
to.” 

“And you found out?” This rather timidly 
from Mrs. Chickering. 

Mrs. Jack answered with an emphatic: 

“Humph! Of course! I just couldn’t stand 
being annoyed with not knowing. It’s Renee 
Grant, the dancer!” 

Mrs. Chickering gasped, but she was far 


GOSSIP 21 

from being as shocked as she wished Mrs. Jack 
to think she was. 

“The person who had his house-boat last 
year at Palm Beach?” 

“The same!” Mrs. Jack put her tongue in 
her check with the impudence of a Cockney 
chambermaid. 

Mrs. Chickering had heard the whisper that 
connected Malvern’s name with Gloria Dawn’s 
and she repeated it to Mrs. Jack. If a lady 
of one of our first families can be charged with 
snorting, Mrs. Jack was guilty, for she had 
heard the talk already, and her comment was 
to the point. 

“Too good for him; absolutely too good for 
Jim. But he won’t fool her; she will know 
about this Grant person.” 


CHAPTER III 


A MAN OF MILLIONS 

But Gloria knew nothing- about Renee Grant. 
She was particularly careful not to know the 
small talk of Broadway. And it would have 
surprised her to know that her own name was 
being coupled with Jim Malvern’s. She had 
seen Malvern in the theater four or five times 
since meeting him at Piping Rock. She had 
avoided meeting his eyes the last time or two.. 
Why, she could not have said. She liked Mal¬ 
vern ; but he weighed on her. In comparison, 
her own success was dwarfed by his. And he 
had achieved his so easily; she had never seen 
a troubled expression cross his face. Gloria 
rather resented this; her own long years of 
struggling were unforgotten. And she would 
age, and age was the impassable barrier; her 

mother had not been able to scale it. At best, 
22 


A MAN OF MILLIONS 


23 

whatever career she was to have would be brief. 
Jim Malvern would go on making his millions. 
Real greatness would come to him with ad¬ 
vancing years. Somehow it didn't seem fair. 

Looking back, she felt that he had rather 
monopolized her at Piping Rock, especially on 
the way in to town. He had sent her a 
gorgeous basket of flowers the following day— 
but that had really been in payment of a bet. 
Ten days had passed since the races, during 
which time she had spoken to Malvern but once, 
and that for just a moment at an informal “at 
home" which she had given the previous after¬ 
noon. He had come late and stayed but a few 
minutes. Just fancy, perhaps, but she had 
thought he seemed aloof; and that surprised 
and piqued her, for, after the day in the coun¬ 
try and his repeated presence in her audiences, 
Gloria had expected—and half feared—that 
he would show her some attention. 

She would not admit that his failure to do so 
came as a disappointment; and yet, she was not 


24 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

able to dismiss Malvern from her mind. He 
was out “in front” again to-night, and she knew 
she gave a wretched performance because of 
his being there. Surely the play had long since 
ceased to interest the man. Why, then, did he 
continue to haunt the theater? Gloria felt as 
if she were on exhibition before him—as 
though he were a judge come to pass sentence 
on her. She was glad that Abe came to her 
dressing-room immediately after the last cur¬ 
tain. 

Abe was old and ugly and still hopelessly 
East Side, although he had been up-town for 
thirty-five years, but Gloria felt a strange affec¬ 
tion for him sweep over her as her maid ad¬ 
mitted him. Abe was so patently what he was, 
without any attempt at pretense, that she prized 
his interest in her. He called her honey—but 
every one was either honey or Miss So-and-so 
to Abe; and Abe drew the line pretty sharply, 
too. 

Gloria had been none too happy recently as 


A MAN OF MILLIONS 


25 


the star of After the Rain . Men had always 
pursued her—desirable and undesirable—and 
she had enjoyed it after a fashion, keeping 
them at whatever distance she chose. Experi¬ 
ence had not prepared her, however, for the 
advances Jimmie Ryan, Abe's press man, had 
made to her, nor for the attentions Rhodes, the 
author of the piece, had forced on her. She 
had, it is true, put them in their proper places, 
but Jimmie had retaliated by doing nothing for 
either the play or its star; not that After the 
Rain needed his help now. Rhodes had re¬ 
sorted to changing her lines time after time, 
calling rehearsals day after day until Abe had 
cried a halt. Rhodes had threatened to break 
with Ascher if he interfered with what the 
playwright called “necessary building up." 
Gloria knew that Abe could not afford to lose 
Rhodes, and she had consented to go on, but 
little Abe had said No, and Rhodes had left. 


26 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


A smile wreathed Abe's fat, round face to¬ 
night. The Rhodes incident was already a 
closed book with him, but for all that he was 
far from feeling as happy as his smile led 
Gloria to believe, and she realized as much as 
soon as he had spoken. 

“He was out there again to-night," he said, 
referring to Malvern. Abe's house-manager 
had apprised him of the great man's patron¬ 
age. He could put two and two together, and 
he lost his smile as he saw Gloria's face fall at 
his news. 

“It ain't the show that's bringing him here," 
he said unhappily as he sank into a chair. “I 
wouldn't give a nickel for the piece without 
you." 

Gloria did not look up. The removal of her 
make-up seemed to claim her whole attention, 
but Abe was not deceived. Her nervousness 
seemed to him but an admission of what he had 
come to speak about. And Gloria, dreading his 
next question, wished herself at home or any- 


A MAN OF MILLIONS 


27 

where but in her dressing-room in the Adelphi 
Theater. 

“He’s never been back stage, has he?” Abe 
asked. 

Gloria had not marshalled her wits, and she 
very foolishly said: 

“Whoever are you talking about, Abe?” 

Abe spread his hands entreatingly. 

“Now, honey,” he implored, “you ain't going 
to be up-stage with Abe, are you? You ain't in 
love with him?” 

Gloria laughed without wanting to. “Of 
course not, silly,” she said. “I hardly know the 
man.” 

“That's the best fooler this here cupid's 
got,” Abe muttered, apparently unconvinced. 
“People don't have to know each other fifteen 
or twenty years to fall in love. He ain't com¬ 
ing here for his health.” 

The line was an old one, but it was still com¬ 
prehensive enough to make further conversa¬ 
tion worse than idle. 


28 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


For once Gloria left the theater without a 
cheery good-night to the stage crew. The men 
were in need of it, too, for Abe had “ragged” 
them to the very limit of their union cards— 
and for no reason at all—or perhaps he did 
have his reason, wise little man that he was, 
but if so it concerned his star and not his stage 
crew. ; 


CHAPTER IV 


“money ain’t everything” 

Gloria did not let Abe’s directness worry 
her for long. In fact the incident had been 
quite forgotten in the pleasures of the following 
day; but Malvern came again, and so did Abe., 
Strangely enough Abe found it hard to voice 
his thoughts to-night. In the end it was Gloria 
who said for him what he himself could not say. 

“But every night he comes,” Abe protested, 
in answer to Gloria’s emphatic declaration that 
Malvern meant nothing to her. 

“Don’t be foolish,” Gloria said earnestly. “I 
wish he would not come. I was terrible to¬ 
night.” 

“Yeh?” Abe asked sceptically. “I thought 

you were immense.” He paused and fixed his 

eyes on Gloria’s. “Give it to me straight, honey 
29 


30 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Ci 

—you mean there’s nothing on between the two 
of you?” 

Abe’s tone and the woeful expression of his 
face made him a truly pathetic figure. Gloria 
could not repress a soft, mocking laugh. 

“Of course not,” she said emphatically. 
“Will you have it in writing, Abe?” This 
banteringly. 

Abe sighed with relief and grinned, mopping 
his face the while. 

“You had me scared to death, honey,” he 
murmured. “I know there ain’t a woman in 
N’York but what would grab him if they got 
the chance. I guess if you was just looking 
for money, you couldn’t do better.” 

“Please, Abe!” Gloria protested. “Let’s talk 
about something pleasant.” 

“That’s all right. These swell people have 
made a lot of you. You’re earning big money 
—it’s going to be more, too—but it ain’t noth¬ 
ing compared to what they’ve got—and you 
wouldn’t be human if you didn’t get to thinking 


“MONEY AIN’T EVERYTHING’’ 31 

now and then how much easier it would be to 
marry one of them big fortunes than to try and 
lay up a few thousand on the stage.” 

“That has occurred to me, Abe.” 

“Of course! I know how it is; but money 
ain’t everything—that is, a lot of money. 
You’ve got it in you to go a long way. This 
is just the beginning; this piece is only what 
you make it. I’m going across after Christ¬ 
mas ; I’ll have a real play for you when I come 
back—Barrie, if money will get it.” 

This news drew an excited: 

“Do you really mean it, Abe?” 

“Of course! You know, society and the 
stage don’t mix. The stage ought to mean 
everything in the world to a girl as successful 
as you are, honey—money, reputation, career 
—but it don’t, not to you. And yet, you were 
born in the theater. There’s nothing it can give 
but what is yours for the taking.” 

“Abe!” Gloria exclaimed, “you are as gloomy 
as an owl to-night. The stage does mean every- 


32 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

thing to me; you make me feel ungrateful by 
saying that it doesn’t. Whatever I have, the 
stage has given me. I owe everything I have 
to it.” 

“That’s it—I wanted to hear you say that,” 
Abe declared vehemently. “I’ve got some re¬ 
lief now. But just the same, I wish you were 
done with society. I’ve been getting so I was 
afraid to open the paper in the morning unless 
I should read one of those things, you know 
—Stage Loses to Society. Miss Gloria— You 
know what I mean—Malvern, or somebody like 
him, taking you away from me.” 

Had Gloria heard this from any other per¬ 
son, her mother included, she would have been 
very much embarrassed, but she only shook her 
head now as she gazed at Abe—proof enough 
that they understood each other very well— 
and then, impulsively, she caught up one of his 
pudgy hands in both of hers and said: 

“You dear old fusser, will you please stop 
worrying? And will you please stop putting 


“MONEY AIN’T EVERYTHING” 33 

such ideas into my head? And don’t you dare 
say a word of this to my mother; it would 
frighten her to death. Now you run along be¬ 
fore I try to kiss you. And—and stop think¬ 
ing such things. I intend to go on playing for 
years and years and years./’ 


CHAPTER V 


“i LOVE HIM SO” 

Suddenly, however, Gloria found Jim Mal¬ 
vern a factor in her life. He had been waiting 
only to assure himself that she was necessary 
to his happiness; in love and in business he 
usually knew what he wanted before he reached 
out for it. Wherever she turned, now, she 
found him at her elbow. The gossips took 
note and soon the tongues were wagging on 
Fifth Avenue just as assiduously—if not in 
the same key—as they do on Second Avenue. 
Broadway heard the talk, too. Naturally, 
Gloria’s mother was not the last to be informed. 
It came as a shock to her, for, although she 
loved money, she had but one god—the stage! 
That Gloria could even contemplate forsaking 
her career came as nothing less than a catas¬ 
trophe to Celia Dawn. And Gloria, young and 

34 


“I LOVE HIM SO” 35 

supremely happy with the wonder of the first 
great love of her life, felt her air-castles 
tumbling about her ears.. 

She told herself she should have known the 
present hour had been inevitable. She had 
realized as much in those now seemingly dis¬ 
tant days before Malvern had stormed her 
heart. She remembered she had said as much 
to Abe Ascher. But these past weeks she had 
been drifting on a rose-scented sea—not only 
afraid, but lacking the desire to break its placid¬ 
ity by tossing even the tiniest pebble of discon¬ 
tent upon its surface. Just where Jim and 
she were drifting Gloria had not known, or 
cared greatly. Their final destination—now 
that she saw it so clearly—rather surprised her. 
She had not thought of the approach to mar¬ 
riage in quite the way Jim and she had made 
it. He had not asked her to marry him, but 
that was only because she had refused to listen 
to him. He would ask again. Yes—and she 
would not say no. She might hesitate—even 


36 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

laugh at him as she had done before—but she 
would not say no to him. She knew her debt 
to her mother, to her traditions, to the stage 
(and that included Abe), but she would not 
say no to Jim Malvern. Why did her mother 
have to say that Jim's money had blinded her? 
She knew she had never considered his mil¬ 
lions in surrendering to him. Stung to the 
quick, she said: 

“But mother dear, it is not his money. 
Please do not say that to me again. I know 
how you have counted on my success—you've 
actually grown young again this past year." 
Gloria paused and turned away for a moment. 
“You—make me feel as if I were stealing some¬ 
thing from you in marrying Jim," she went 
on then, her voice betraying her emotion. 
“Why should it matter so?" 

“Has he asked you to marry him?" her 
mother asked. 

“He will," Gloria answered naively., 

“And he will name the conditions., Surely, 


“I LOVE HIM SO” 37 

Gloria, you understand that marrying Malvern 
means giving up your career. Don’t think you 
are so strongly entrenched that society will 
make an exception in your case; you are not the 
first one of us to be taken up socially. I assure 
you, my dear child, that the stage stops this 
side of the altar; you will either give it up or 
give up Malvern.” 

Gloria was hardly prepared for this—not 
that she had thought otherwise! She had not 
thought about it at all—and that by design, 
too, for she had sensed that in this direction 
a decision lay ahead of her which portended un¬ 
happiness for her no matter how she decided, 
and with feminine logic she had closed her 
mind to the entire matter. 

“You—you seem surprised,” her mother ex¬ 
claimed. “You do not doubt that-” 

“No—I—I just hadn’t thought about it,” 
Gloria murmured. “I—I know it is true.” 

“Well, you must decide, dearest. What are 
you going to do?” 



38 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Gloria shook her head. Minutes passed be¬ 
fore she said wearily: 

“I don’t know. I don’t want to say now . ~ . 
But I don’t see how I could go on without him, 
I love him so.” 

Gloria’s mother shook her head, but she 
wisely held her tongue. She seldom gave way 
to tears, knowing the handicap they are after 
fifty, but cry she did when she reached the 
privacy of her own boudoir. Such grief and 
unhappiness as was hers was selfish, of course, 
but at least she rose superior to the power of 
mere money. She would have preferred a hun¬ 
dred, nay a million, times to have had her 
daughter a recognized power in the theater 
rather than to have her the wife of the world’s 
richest man. 

And in that there was something fine. 


CHAPTER VI 

RENEE GRANT, THE DANCER 

Sultry-eyed Renee Grant heard the rumor, 
too. In fact, figuratively speaking, she had 
had her ear to the ground these many weeks. 
Her line of communication with Broadway was 
a direct one. She had smiled at first; other 
women had interested Malvern at different 
times without ever really endangering her posi¬ 
tion. But her smile had come with increasing 
difficulty lately. She had seen less and less of 
Malvern as January went by. Her checks— 
those blessed checks—came regularly, however. 
That sustained her. She was far too cagey to 
say anything to Malvern. She fancied that she 
knew what it was about her that appealed to 
him, and her strategy was to make herself more 
inviting than ever in his eyes. She was the 
first to know that she had failed to accomplish 

39 


40 


PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


her purpose, but she masked her feelings. She 
had been doing that since her early teens; but 
that made it hardly less easy for her in this 
instance. Not that she loved Jim Malvern. 
There was a condition that passed for love 
with Renee, but Jim had never aroused it in 
her. 

But to lose him! The thought prostrated her. 
She was strictly dependent on the Malvern 
pocketbook. He had squandered a fortune 
on her, but she had saved nothing. 

Renee was, at heart, a vulgarian, but she was 
precious wise. Save for her line of communi¬ 
cation, she had cut herself off completely from 
Broadway. She believed she had educated her¬ 
self up to Jim's level; at least she had acquired 
a veneer of small talk that was quite foreign 
to the circles in which she had formerly moved. 
Her taste in clothes was not open to criticism. 
In fact, Renee had made herself a person of 
some importance to those who had known her 
professionally. Her eyes were luminous with 


RENEE GRANT, THE DANCER 41 

the innocence of a child. She was, of course, 
immoral—perhaps unmoral would be more 
exact; in that part of Chicago in which she was 
raised the difference is not recognized—but the 
hard lines and lips which are popularly sup¬ 
posed to be the concomitants of vice and illicit 
love were absent from her face. 

In happy moments Renee owned a sparkling 
sense of wit. Malvern had enjoyed her im¬ 
mensely at times. More than once he had sur¬ 
prised some real virtue in her. He had said 
he loved her; Renee had not insisted on strict 
truthfulness from him. Their little affair had 
continued as such things do; but Renee, believ¬ 
ing her life was ordered according to certain 
precepts—which she really didn’t, of course, 
or else she would not have found herself in her 
present dilemma—never quite overcame her 
native fear that a “good thing” could not last, 
that the whole tide of life was against her 
and that Malvern was but an episode in her 
tangled existence. It was this very thought 


42 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

that drove her (the word was her own) into 
Wheeler Johnson’s arms. 

Wheeler, at least, was not above her socially. 
He was her line of communication with the 
world she had quitted. That world, quite able 
to understand Malvern’s interest in Renee, 
wondered why he “stood” for Wheeler. They 
had pondered this question in other “affairs,” 
not realizing that men like Jim Malvern moved 
in a world quite apart from the Wheeler 
Johnsons. 

Renee’s Wheeler had filched from her a good 
part of the money Malvern had squandered. 
He needed it, too, for, save for a very sketchy 
connection with the tracks down in Maryland, 
he had no visible income. So it can be imagined 
that he felt vitally concerned in the gossip that 
’had Malvern marrying Gloria Dawn. Panic- 
stricken, he had rushed to Renee with the bad 
tidings. 

An hour of extravagant talk, of bitter de¬ 
nunciation, and of many threats had followed. 


RENEE GRANT, THE DANCER 43 

They were together in Renee’s apartment when 
the hall-man signaled that “the big red car 
is here.” 

“He’s come for the big break,” Wheeler 
snapped angrily. “He’s out to burn the well- 
known bridges.” He caught Renee’s arms sav- 
agely. “Listen, kid,” he whipped out, “if it’s 
a show down, take him for a wad. Why, you’ve 
got it on him so pat that he won’t dare to turn 
you down. Let him see that you’re wise. Do 
you get me?” 

For once Renee was supreme. “Don’t tell 
me what to do,” she exclaimed imperiously. 
“Win or lose, I’ll play it my own way. Re¬ 
member that, Wheeler.” 

And as Malvern’s key grated in the lock, 
Wheeler Johnson slipped out through the 
maid’s door. A second or two later Malvern 
faced Renee. She met him with a smile, no 
trace of the past hour’s turmoil lingering on 
her fair face. She had expected to find him 
cold, aloof, but her shrewd eyes found him no 


PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


44 

more reserved than she had grown accustomed 
to finding him. Renee felt relieved. 

“Fm going south to-morrow night,” he told 
her. 

“When the snow begins to fall, 

Then the South begins to call.” 

Renee hummed the chorus of the Follies’ hit 
of the year. Jim smiled warmly. 

“And you, Little Miss Take?” he queried. 
“Where are you going?” 

Why, this was the Jim of old. Renee caught 
her breath with the sheer joy of life. Surely 
this was not just a pose for her benefit. She 
resolved that if it were she would answer 
in kind. Malvern should never see a tear in 
her eyes. 

“Where?” she echoed. “Not with you, eh, 
Jim?” 

Malvern shook his head. “No,” he mur¬ 
mured slowly. “No can come, Miss Take.” 

Renee thought he sighed regretfully. 


RENEE GRANT, THE DANCER 45 

“What about Egypt and Algiers?” Malvern 
asked. “There’s a winter cruise leaving New 
York on the second—Gibraltar, Naples, the 
Pyramids. It would do you a world of good. 
It would be April before you got back to New 
York.” 

“And you would be married by then, eh, 
Jim?” Renee’s tone was softly mocking. Mal¬ 
vern glanced at her shrewdly, surprised and de¬ 
lighted to find that she knew the truth and took 
it so splendidly. 

“So you know?” he queried. 

“How could I help knowing, Jim? I con¬ 
gratulate you.” 

Malvern came over to her and caught her up 
in his arms. 

“What a good little sport you are, Renee,” he 
said tenderly. “I didn’t know how to tell you.. 
I hardly . 

“So you are actually engaged?” Renee whis¬ 
pered. 

“No. To-morrow, I hope.” 


46 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

“And what is to become of little Miss Take?” 
Renee murmured lightly, deep in his arms. 

Malvern kissed her affectionately before 
saying: 

“Why; you’ll always be my Little Miss Take. 
If I don’t come, the checks will. Telephone to 
the steamship company to-morrow and make 
your arrangements.” 

He gave her a check in five figures before he 
left—an amount quite staggering even to 
Renee. And so the sun shone once more upon 
the “bird-cage,” Wheeler’s pet name for the 
apartment.; 


CHAPTER VII 
“how can you ask?” 

Malvern had always taken what he desired. 
Sometimes, however, he had found it difficult 
to cut free when his tastes had changed. 
Renee had proven a welcome surprise. But, 
then, Malvern was not “cutting free” from 
Renee. He may have told himself that he was, 
but if so, it was only lip service. He had a 
conscience, and man of the world though he 
was, he had found it impossible to go to Gloria 
determined to win her promise to be his wife, 
until he had reached some sort of an under¬ 
standing with Renee. She had made it easy for 
him; so it was with a light heart that he entered 
Gloria’s studio the following afternoon. 

Gloria, in filmy gray crepe, had never ap¬ 
peared so alluring to Jim Malvern as she did 

this afternoon as he sat down beside her, facing 
47 


4 8 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

the glowing hearth. She knew that he was 
leaving for Palm Beach that evening; but both 
seemed to understand that this visit was not 
motivated by his departure for the South. 

For a week Gloria had known that he would 
come to her—that he would ask her to be his 
wife. It had made her avoid Abe, and he, in 
turn, had avoided her; he knew how futile any 
further word of his would be to stop her from 
marrying Malvern. Gloria’s mother had not 
been so reticent. Perhaps she would have 
served her cause better if she had said less; 
but that is doubtful, for Gloria had known these 
many days that she would not refuse Malvern, 
no matter what the cost to her. 

She had been nervous before he came—half- 
dreading the expected moment, now that it was 
to hand—and then, before she realized it, he 
was asking her to be his wife. His voice awak¬ 
ened a magic melody in her heart. She glanced 
at him through half closed eyes—so strong, so 
handsome with the flickering firelight playing 


“HOW CAN YOU ASK?” 49 

upon his face. Words which she could not 
utter trembled on her tongue. She closed her 
eyes as she felt his arms encircle her. His lips 
brushed hers. The desire to be always held so 
engulfed her, swept her on with its rush; and 
then at the very brink of the precipice to which 
love had raised her, her spirit poised, hopelessly 
trying to scan the full measure of her life. In a 
voice she hardly recognized for her own, she 
heard herself saying: 

“But my career, Jim, dear—what of 
it?” 

“Career ? Why, darling, I hadn’t thought of 
that—I—I took it for granted that you under¬ 
stood.” 

Gloria winced. “You insist, then, that I 
leave the stage?” 

“It couldn’t be otherwise, Gloria.” 

“No, I presume not—it couldn’t be other¬ 
wise,” she said slowly. “Jim! You don’t know 
what you are asking of me; you couldn’t under¬ 
stand.” 


SO PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

“Oh, I think I do, Gloria. As my wife, you 
will find a career opening before you that will 
soon make you forget the stage.” 

“I doubt that, Jim,” she answered sadly. 

“But you know how tawdry it is—the 
blare-” 

“And yet I love it—almost as much as I love 
you. It’s been everything to me.” 

“But you do love me, Gloria?” he asked 
eagerly. 

Gloria smiled at him patiently. 

“How can you ask, Jim?” she whispered so 
low that he barely heard. 

“Tell me then that you will marry me,” he 
pleaded. “If love can make up for what I am 
asking of you, Gloria, your sacrifice will not be 
in vain.” 

Somehow her hand found its way into 
his. 

“You—will be kind to me, Jim?—very ten¬ 
der?” she murmured. 

“Darling!” Malvern’s voice failed him. 


“HOW CAN YOU ASK?” 51 

But he felt Gloria’s arms about his neck. What 
need of words? 

* * * * * * * 
Three days later Mrs. Dawn announced her 
daughter’s engagement. Abe Ascher got the 
news in his morning paper. His eyes glazed 
as he read the headline he had so long feared 
would meet his gaze some day. He folded the 
paper and put it away in his desk without read¬ 
ing it. He was alone in his little office, but he 
locked the door as a further precaution, and 
sank down limply in his swivel chair. Hours 
passed. Some time later one of his employees 
brought up a cablegram and pushed it in be¬ 
neath the door. 

Abe stared at it for many minutes before he 
reached down to pick it up. It was from Barrie 
—the great Barrie—He had a play for Gloria 
Dawn! Abe groaned. Slowly he tore the mes¬ 
sage to bits. What need had he of a play now ? 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE MESSAGE IN THE CUP 

Gloria had almost immediate proof of Mal¬ 
vern's power, for no sooner was her engage¬ 
ment to him announced than she realized that 
whatever antagonism she had aroused by ac¬ 
cepting his attentions had disappeared. In one 
way or another a great many of the socially 
prominent were depending on him to keep their 
security-laden caravels afloat; wisdom there¬ 
fore dictated an eager acceptance of Malvern's 
wife-to-be. Gloria found herself deluged with 
gifts and invitations. She had always bowed 
to the majesty of the great city, but she had 
never imagined it the Bagdad that it became 
now for her. 

With the passing of March she said farewell 

to the stage. Little Abe bowed her out with a 
52 


THE MESSAGE IN THE CUP 53 

Spartan smile. Two weeks later, she and Mal¬ 
vern were married—a great wedding properly 
stage-managed by Mrs. Van, adding almost as 
much to her prestige as to the bride’s—and then 
White Sulphur Springs for a honeymoon amid 
the Virginian hills, already budding with 
spring. 

Gloria was royally happy. A sharp canter 
over hard-packed clay before breakfast, a round 
of golf, lazy afternoons in the warm sunshine, 
and Malvern always hovering about her with 
a lover’s attentiveness, surrounding her with 
luxury and anticipating her slightest wish. As 
all lovers do at White Sulphur, they got off sur¬ 
prisingly early one morning for the old fortune¬ 
teller’s cabin on Pine Top. They had breakfast 
on the way at what had been a great house in 
ante-bellum days, but now half fallen to ruin 
among the honeysuckle and columbine. An old 
negro mammy served them on the wide 
veranda—fried chicken and waffles of fairy 
lightness—telling them in an awed whisper that 


54 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

this had once been General Jubal Early’s head¬ 
quarters. 

Hundreds before Jim and Gloria had heard 
her tale, but no one had ever hung on her words 
with keener interest or rewarded her with a 
larger tip. 

Mammy, in her way, was quite a fortune¬ 
teller, too. She “reckoned” that the beautiful' 
girl and the gray-haired man with the twinkling 
eyes were “quality,” and she obligingly turned 
her back so that Jim might kiss his wife. Later, 
with Mammy Joe bowing to them, they rode 
away, their happy laughter floating back to the 
old negress. 

It took them more than an hour to reach 
the crest of the mountain. The beautiful morn¬ 
ing rode with them, stirring their emotions and 
lifting Gloria, at least, to sublime heights. 

It was she who first caught sight of the for¬ 
tune-teller’s cabin. 

The tumble-down shack had the appearance 
of being the abiding place of spirits both good 


THE MESSAGE IN THE CUP 55 

and bad, and the wizened old crone, who stirred 
the tea leaves as she unraveled the mysteries of 
the future, was quite in keeping with the place. 

Gloria, young and bubbling over with happi¬ 
ness, was delightfully thrilled. Jim felt her 
tremble and he caught her hand and pressed it 
as they waited for the seer to commune with 
the fates. 

The old woman shook her head pityingly as 
she gazed into Gloria’s cup. Mournfully, then, 
she said: 

“I see sorrow—sorrow everywhere.” 

She did not look up, and Jim and Gloria ex¬ 
changed a glance and edged closer to each other. 

“I see tears . . . there is a shroud.” 

The fortune-teller’s voice faded away to a 
whisper. She was silent for a moment, and 
then a surprised “Ah, here is happiness; happi¬ 
ness shining through tears!” escaped her. Ap¬ 
parently the future was not able to withold 
anything from her, and she went on to sketch 
a very weird life for Gloria. 


56 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Malvern knew that Gloria was uneasy, and 
he was glad when they were ready to go. The 
old crone followed them to the door and pressed 
an owl's wing, sure fetish against the powers 
of evil, into Gloria's hand. Mechanically, 
Gloria took it. She and Jim had covered a 
third of the distance down the mountainside 
before they pulled up their horses. Gloria still 
held the owl's wing wrapped in her handker¬ 
chief. She took it out and gazed at it rather 
fearfully as Malvern drew up beside her. Her 
day had been spoiled, and as she looked at the 
gruesome thing in her handkerchief, a feeling 
of revulsion passed over her. She could not 
bring herself to touch it; but, wishing to be rid 
of the unwelcome gift, she dropped the hand¬ 
kerchief over the precipice. A sigh of relief 
escaped her as it fluttered out of sight. Mal¬ 
vern sensed her nervousness. 

“You are not going to let what she said up¬ 
set you, are you, dear?" he asked kindly. 

Gloria shook her head. “Of course not," she 


THE MESSAGE IN THE CUP 57 

answered; but her voice quavered strangely. 
“I—I do wish we hadn’t gone up there.” 

Malvern leaned over and embraced her. 

“So do I, Gloria,” he said earnestly. “It was 
just a lark. I fancy the woman resented our 
remarks about her cabin. Come, we’ll not men¬ 
tion the subject again.” 

Gloria smiled as he kissed her. 

“We have a long way to go, too,” she said, 
glancing at her watch. “It will be six before 
we reach the hotel.” And with a word to her 
horse, she led the way down into the peaceful 
valley. 

During the succeeding days, however, she 
was not able to dismiss the incident from her 
mind, and she was willing enough to leave at 
the end of the week. 

Malvern had a town house on Park Avenue, 
but it had been closed all winter, so they had 
decided to go direct to The Towers, his magnifi¬ 
cent estate near Rye. By motor, it was only 
a few minutes to town. Malvern had had the 


58 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

place redecorated to Gloria’s taste, and she 
looked forward to become its chatelaine. 

It was their intention to go north when the 
hot weather came. Jim had a big game pre¬ 
serve up in Quebec Province that he was par¬ 
ticularly devoted to. The squawling, white- 
lipped Saguenay flowed past the lodge he had 
built there. Malvern had often taken a keen 
delight in painting wonderful word-pictures of 
this semi-wilderness with its balsam-scented 
nights and chattering squirrels. 

Gloria was so completely engrossed in her 
plans for The Towers that Bois Blanc, the 
Canadian paradise, seemed almost unattainable. 
Malvern, satiated with society, professed to be 
interested in the activities she planned, but it 
was only a gesture. Gloria failed to notice his 
lack of enthusiasm; nor did she suspect that he 
was disappointed in her for the first time. 

He had rather nursed the hope that Gloria 
would take him away from the social horde. 
Fortunately, or otherwise, his secretary came 


THE MESSAGE IN THE CUP 59 

aboard their private car at Washington, and 
in discussing business Malvern quite forgot 
his disappointment. In his absence, several 
matters of importance had gone his way, and 
by the time their train arrived at the Pennsyl¬ 
vania Station he was his usual buoyant self. 


CHAPTER IX 


SCANDAL 

May and early June witnessed an unbroken 
series of triumphs for Gloria Malvern. So¬ 
ciety had not yet begun its flight Newportward. 
Fashionable Westchester was at its best, and 
Gloria’s teas and dances became the Mecca of 
the younger set. Gathering about her the 
smartest of the smart, adding a celebrity now 
and then to suit her whim but dominating her 
affairs by her own magnetic personality, won 
for her the reputation of being the season’s most 
popular hostess. 

“You do not surprise me,” Mrs. Van said to 
her one Monday morning as she was stepping 
into her motor to run back to town. “You have 
been absolutely capitivating these past three 
days. I do wish you would come to Newport 
for the summer.” 


60 


SCANDAL 


61 

“Jim wouldn’t listen to it,” Gloria answered. 
“He hasn’t missed a summer at Bois Blanc in 
five years. And I do need the rest* I’m really 
keen about going north.” 

All of which was true enough; but what 
Gloria did not say was that she had been seeing 
less and less of Jim, and that her acceptance 
of Bois Blanc for the summer, when she might 
have had Newport, was in the nature of an 
amend for what she suspected had been a round 
of deadly dull affairs to him. 

The following Thursday Gloria gave a din¬ 
ner dance in honor of a visiting prince whom 
she had been lucky enough to capture for the 
evening. Jim had promised not to fail her, but 
at the last moment he telephoned that it would 
be impossible for him to leave town. 

Gloria was not only hurt, but feared that his 
absence from her affairs had grown so notice¬ 
able that the gossips would not be long in turn¬ 
ing their tongues on her. ; She resolved to speak 


62 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


to Jim, and the following evening she sought 
him as he lounged in his study. 

“What is the matter, Jim?” she asked more 
bluntly than she had intended doing. “Am I 
spending too much money ?” 

Malvern laughed as he sat up erectly. 

“Whatever made you think so?” he ques¬ 
tioned good-naturedly. 

“You—you knew I wanted you last night. 
I hardly see anything of you any more, Jim. 
I-” 

“We are not alone very much, are we?” Mal¬ 
vern queried as Gloria hesitated. Uncon¬ 
sciously, Gloria’s head went up as she caught 
his inference. 

“Alone—I mean together,” Malvern added 
as he saw his wife’s eyes widen with surprise. 

“Then you have been bored to death, eh, 
Jim ?” she said unhappily. 

“Why no, Gloria,” Malvern answered. He 
caught her hand and drew her down beside 
him. “You’ve been very happy doing what 


SCANDAL 63 

you wanted to do, dear. Your success has made 
me very happy. 

“But you have been bored, Jim. The people 
whom I entertain, and who entertain me, mean 
little or nothing to you.” 

“Perhaps not,” Malvern replid slowly. “Do 
they mean so much to you, Gloria?” he asked 
then, his arm caressing her. 

“I suppose they are the sort of people I must 
look forward to meeting,” she replied frankly. ; 
“My future seems to be bound up with them, 
more or less. I suppose I could take up settle¬ 
ment work or something worth while . . - 4 Or 
we might get an open boat and go off to the 
South Seas.” Gloria’s sarcasm was biting. She 
was cross with herself, as well as with her hus¬ 
band, and at no effort to conceal the fact. 

It was her first show of temper, and her re¬ 
sentment at his lack of interest in her friends 
brought only a tolerant smile from Malvern. 

“Forgive me,” he said sincerely. “I don’t 
think that all of these people are the zanies that 


64 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

I seemed to infer they are. Maybe I am fed 
up with society; I have had so much of it. But 
no matter; IT 1 not offend again. If you’ll prom¬ 
ise to like my Bois Blanc, I’ll agree to like your 
teas and dances. You know I am awfully 
proud of you, dear; and I do love you dearly, 
Gloria.” 

Gloria’s frown disappeared before such a 
complete capitulation, and with the promise to 
herself that Jim and she should find more time 
for being together, the incident was apparently 
forgotten; but scandal and small talk which 
she had closed her ears to as an actress stormed 
her defenses as a social leader, and a day or 
two later she heard the story of her husband’s 
affair with Renee Grant, the dancer. 

Gloria said nothing to Jim, but she could not 
help wondering if his interest in the woman did 
not explain his lack of interest in what went on 
in his own home. It was a crushing blow. 

During the succeeding days Gloria could not 
bring herself to face Malvern, for she had loved 


SCANDAL 


65 

him very dearly, and the enormity of his offense 
grew in her eyes as time passed. That they 
could go on, she doubted. And yet Malvern 
had become so much a part of her that it seemed 
there could be no life without him. 

As humanity ever has done, Gloria wished 
—quite impotently—that she could turn back 
the clock, back to the days before Jim had come 
into her life. At least, she would have had her 
career. 

Reasoning of this sort would have sufficed 
for many; and had Gloria been as sophisticated 
as some of her friends, it would have been 
enough for her. But she had loved Malvern; 
and that made quite a difference. Naturally, 
memory harked back to the old fortune-teller 
at Pine Top. Was this the sorrow she had 
foreseen? The thought made Gloria shiver. 

Malvern was at a loss to understand Gloria's 
coldness. Renee Grant had been back from 
Egypt several months, but he had seen her only 
once, and then but for a few minutes. That 


66 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

he had not seen her oftener was not due to any 
moral scruple. He had found Gloria much the 
more interesting of the two. 

He became very solicitous of Gloria’s well¬ 
being, and his constant attention awakened in 
her the faint hope that the future might yet 
hold something for them. Some women would 
have left no stone unturned to find out every 
least little thing concerning Renee Grant. 
Gloria made no such attempt. She did, how¬ 
ever, resolve to win Jim away from her. They 
would be going North in another month; that 
should give her her chance. If she failed the 
fault would be hers.. 


CHAPTER X 


FLAMING FIRES 

In a social way, only an affair or two for 
certain June brides-to-be remained on Gloria’s 
calendar. She was delighted to find Malvern 
taking an interest in them. It gave her renewed 
confidence in herself and made her very glad 
that she had not said anything to him concern¬ 
ing his affair with Renee. 

Jim noticed her returning gaiety, and felt 
very proud of himself. In the course of the 
week they gave a great party for Miss Sylvia 
Cathcart, quite the bride of the year. Sylvia’s 
father, old J. Wellington Cathcart, had been 
one of Jim’s earliest sponsors. Sylvia, how¬ 
ever, was soon forgotten on the night in ques¬ 
tion, for among the guests came Miss Anne 
Cabot, the sister of the Governor, John Sebas¬ 
tian Cabot. She and Jim had once evinced some 

67 


68 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


interest in each other—a very one-sided “inter¬ 
est,” for Anne had laughed at Malvern. She 
had been an enfant terrible for many men, most 
of them younger than Jim. Her mother had 
packed her off to Europe three years past. 
New York had heard of her from time to time, 
but being rather jealous of her success abroad, 
and resenting her often-voiced determination 
never to return to these United States, society 
had shrugged its shoulders and tried to forget 
Anne. 

She burst on Malvern with cataclysmic effect. 
As he danced with her, his arm trembled. Anne 
had grown into a remarkable beauty, and her 
roguishness had not abated a whit. Charm 
in a woman is such a subtle thing that it is 
hard to define. Malvern found her very 
“foreign.” There was something so exqui¬ 
sitely tantalizing about her that he found it 
almost impossible to resist drawing her close 
to him. 

“You are wonderful, Anne,” he told her. 


FLAMING FIRES 69 

“And you are still the same old flirt/’ she 
whispered. 

“I’ve never forgotten you,” he declared with 
more or less truth. She laughed mockingly., 

“Was—Paris too far away?” she queried. 

Malvern could find no answer. The music 
stopped shortly, and as he led her across the 
floor she said: 

“It was very handsome of you, Jim, to make 
brother Governor.” 

“You flatter me. I had very-” 

“Yes?” she interrupted. “Well, I under¬ 
stand he’s made a very good Governor. Mother 
says no one sees anything of him socially. We 
never understood John. I thought he’d marry 
again.” 

“He never will” Malvern asserted. “He’s 
all wrapped up in Laddie, absolutely devoted to 
him. It’s the thing I like best about John. I 
only hope the boy turns out to be like his 
father.” 

“He may,” Anne answered. “His mother 


70 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

was a remarkable woman. Whatever of great¬ 
ness the Cabots possess belongs to John; his son 
ought to have the spark. In the meantime, how¬ 
ever, the Cabots have gone into social eclipse. 
Mother doesn’t go out or entertain at all. ,, 

“Now that you are back, Anne,” Malvern 
argued, “things will be different.” 

Anne shook her head decisively. 

“I have no intention of staying in America. 
There’s nothing here for me.” 

“There—there may be,” Malvern murmured 
pointedly. They had stepped through a French 
window which led to the wide veranda now 
softly aglow with the light of shaded lanterns. 
Malvern saw Anne turn and gaze at him search- 
ingly. For a second he regretted his speech, 
but there was none of the abashment of youth 
in Anne’s eyes. 

“Silly old Jim,” she whispered. It was not 
a rebuke. 

Malvern caught his breath as they stood there 
reading each other’s thoughts. What a draw 


FLAMING FIRES 71 

she had for him. Renee Grant had once 
aroused something similar in him. But Renee 
was a nobody; Anne was a Cabot—a “blue- 
blood”—able to match ancestors with the great¬ 
est. Renee and he were “through” no matter 
what happened, And Gloria? . . .What was 
it that Anne Cabot possessed that he had hoped 
to find in his wife? Her flair for the unusual? 
—her cynicism ?—her very worldliness ? It 
was nothing quite so much as a philandering 
nature that matched his own that made Anne 
attractive to him; but Malvern caught only a 
faint suggestion of the truth. He knew him¬ 
self well enough to realize that he would pursue 
Anne until she was his. He even saw it as a 
weakness, a something to fight against. Not 
that he would fight it. Perhaps it was unfair 
to Gloria; but mistakes were not helped by going 
on with them. And as he gazed down at Anne, 
so inviting, the physical lure of her mounting 
to his brain, he knew that Gloria and he had 
made a mistake. He bent suddenly and kissed 


72 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

her; and because the kiss was illicit, and Anne’s 
boldness peculiarly appealing to something 
gross in him, Malvern thrilled to his finger tips. 

Anne’s eyes did not waver as they searched 
his. 

“Your technique is almost Russian, Jim,” 
she said as Malvern released her. The others 
were coming out, and Anne laughed as they 
joined Jim and her. Later, he stole away for a 
cigarette alone in his den. 


CHAPTER XI 


DESIRE 

When Malvern came down again he avoided 
Anne. Gloria was pleased to see the zest with 
which he threw himself into the spirit of the 
evening. The shadow of Renee Grant faded 
almost completely away. Anne made merry 
with the other men, and won Gloria with her 
gaiety. Gloria had gone to Cabot Manor, the 
home of the Cabots since Colonial days, soon 
after coming to The Towers. Anne’s mother, a 
grande dame of the early nineties, had received 
her very graciously. Anne had been expected 
even then, but she had not arrived until the 
preceding week. Gloria had met her only once 
previous to this particular night. She had not 
mentioned her name to Jim, for there had been 
no reason to; nor did she do so, more than 
casually, the next day. Anne had but lived, up 

73 


74 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

to the tales she had heard of her, and Jim’s 
request several days later that she invite Anne 
to join the party they had asked up for late 
August met with her hearty approval. 

Gloria found herself actually anxious for 
the North, and she was frankly disappointed 
when Jim delayed their departure a week. 
Something was not in readiness, he told her; it 
was an excuse, invented that he might see Anne 
again. 

As for Anne, she was no fool. It was not 
her intention to have Malvern hopelessly com¬ 
promise her. She was willing enough to accept 
his attentions as long as she had a way out. 
Jim interested her. Just how much, she re¬ 
fused to admit even to herself. She was quite 
conscious of the fact that he was trying to ar¬ 
range a rendezvous with her, and when he sug¬ 
gested motoring to his farm in the hills above 
Pawling, she very promptly said no. 

They compromised on motoring around the 
Croton lakes by moonlight. It was risky, but 


DESIRE 


75 

it was the sort of playing with fire that she 
enjoyed. 

Malvern made violent love to her. Anne 
returned his kisses warmly but hardly in the 
same spirit in which they were offered. 

“You forget that I have a reputation to think 
of,” she protested, “a family reputation/’ she 
added lightly. 

“I suppose I have too,” Malvern laughed. 

“With some people, Jim; not with me, I have 
heard a thing or two, even in Paris.” 

Malvern was on the defensive at once. 

“Give it a name,” he insisted. 

“Renee Grant, the dancer,” Anne retorted. 

“I’ve seen her but once since I married. You 
don’t think I was serious with her?” 

“Oh, no! You’ve never been serious, Jim.” 

“Well, at least we can be honest with each 
other,” he replied. “You-” 

“Let’s be honest with ourselves,” Anne inter¬ 
rupted him; “it’s a sportier thing to do. I 
hadn’t given you a thought for several years 



76 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

until we met the other night. I don't find you 
changed, yet you appeal to me more than you 
ever did. I'm mighty fond of you, but I've no 
intention of becoming your mistress, Jim 
Malvern." 

“Why—I don't know that I had any such in¬ 
tention either. There are other ways," he added 
vaguely. 

“I suppose you mean divorce?" 

“Well, that is a possibility." 

“But hardly a probability. Gloria seems a 
good sort. I wouldn't be too sure that she will 
let you slip through the divorce mill—Besides, 
Jim, I've no longing to have my name dragged 
in the mud for the edification of the rabble. I 
refuse to become a horrible example for them." 

“God, you are cold-blooded about it, aren't 
you, Anne?" 

“Or practical—it depends on the point of 
view, I suppose." 

“There’s always that to consider, of course," 
Jim said with a fleeting smile. “I need a woman 


DESIRE 


77 

who can lead me, who can make me obey. I 
promise you, Anne, that Ell not stop at any¬ 
thing to make you mine. Eve made a mistake, 
but Em not going to go on living it. I can ar¬ 
range matters; your name will not be dragged 
in, Ell see to that. Promise me that you will 
wait, that you’ll come north for a week or 
two!” 

Anne was too wary to say yes. Jim was in¬ 
sistent, but nothing came of it, however, except 
Anne’s flat refusal to join Gloria and him 
at Bois Blanc. Malvern was not discouraged, 
for he knew that she would very likely change 
her mind; women always did. 

He had seen nothing of Renee Grant, and the 
note from her which he had known would come, 
and which he had looked forward to receiving 
with growing dread, reached him on the day 
that Gloria and he were leaving for Quebec. 
It was really a decent note from one in Renee’s 
position, but it annoyed and then infuriated 
Malvern. He answered it and enclosed a check, 


78 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

but with the declaration that it would not be 
followed by others. 

Gloria found him moody and tired-looking 
as they drove to the train. 

“You do not look a bit well, Jim,” she said 
affectionately. 

Malvern glanced at her shrewdly. 

“It’s the confounded weather,” he declared. 
“I do feel tired.” 

“Well, I only hope that the people we have 
invited do not come,” Gloria said, squeezing his 
hand tenderly. “I want to be alone with you, 
my husband.” 

Malvern winced. He looked away rather 
than meet her eyes. 

“Pm afraid you would find it pretty lone¬ 
some,” he said with an effort. And then, fear¬ 
ful lest Gloria notice his confusion: 

“Don't worry about me. I'll be all right in 
a day or two. Pierre will get me in shape be¬ 
fore I've been in the woods a week.” 


PART TWO 

CHAPTER XII 

PIERRE DUCHARME 

The north country charmed Gloria. Even 
Malvern's glumness was not proof against it. 
They had allowed themselves a day in Quebec. 
The following morning they found their car 
at the Parent Square station. Pierre had wired 
that he was waiting for them at Chicoutimi. 

North from the capital their way led through 
a wonderland of green fields and whitewashed 
farmhouses—a paradise the habitant had cut 
out of the wilderness. In the faces of the men 
and women Gloria observed upon the platforms 
of the little stations along the way she caught 
something of that fierce love of the soil which 
fires the step-children of le Grand Monarque. 

It was not necessary to hear them speak to know 
79 


8 o PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


that they were French. Gloria had seen their 
like in the fields of Normandy. The women 
especially interested her—stiffiy starched, their 
rugged, shining faces good to look upon. Peace 
of a rare sort came to her. The world about 
her had been subtly changing, and she with it. 
Before they reached Chambord she was sud¬ 
denly confronted with the fact that hurry had 
departed from life. Here, no one idles; these 
men and women were not dawdlers—Nature 
saw to that—and yet there was prosperity, or 
barring that, enough for all. And it was ac¬ 
complished without hurry. 

Evening found them in Chicoutimi, the rail 
head on the Saguenay. Pierre Ducharme, 
tall and bronzed and straight as an Indian, was 
there to meet them. He had been in charge of 
Bois Blanc since Malvern’s ownership of the 
place. Before that he had acted as a guide 
for him. In that country of many guides 
Pierre Ducharme was regarded with respect 
by both his fellows and the sportsmen who came 


PIERRE DUCHARME 


81 


every summer and fall. Malvern had fancied 
him from the first, and he had never looked 
upon the man as a servant, which was tactful 
of him, for Ducharme would have quickly re¬ 
sented it. In the old days his forefathers had 
held responsible posts in the employ of the 
Northwest Company —couriers de bois, brigade 
leaders, chief-traders. Somewhere in the past 
a dash of Cree blood had been mixed with that 
of his Norman forefathers. According to the 
hedonists, he would never have been able to 
overcome this handicap. To the contrary, how¬ 
ever, his Indian strain manifested itself only 
in a passionate fondness for the wilderness his 
French fathers had wrested from his red 
ancestors. 

It pleased Ducharme to call himself a habi¬ 
tant; but in the accepted use of the term, he 
was not one. One had to know him well to win 
the admission that he had graduated from the 
Agricultural School at Oka—a unit of Laval 
University, the Trappist School. Some one has 


82 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


wisely said that any people wishing to have a 
country of its own must early lay to heart that 
love of the soil which alone can hold a race to 
its ideals. Ducharme never thought of his re¬ 
turn to the upper Saguenay as having sprung 
from motivation of this sort; and yet, unknown 
to him, it had. He was proud of his people; 
proud of what they had accomplished, and na¬ 
tionalistic enough to see for them a future as a 
distinct race. 

Pierre had never established in his own mind 
just how this last was to be accomplished, but 
the thought colored his dreams. Like most 
French-Canadians, he was thrifty. His posi¬ 
tion as charge d'affaires of Bois Blanc, the tidy 
sum he had accumulated (a small fortune on 
the upper Saguenay), and his fervent espousal 
of his people's cause combined to make him a 
man of importance in French-Canadian eyes. 

There was no hint of this in his simple garb 
nor in the set of his mouth. His appearance 
on Fifth Avenue would have caused no com- 


PIERRE DUCHARME 83 

ment other than the remarking of his almost 
perfect body with its challenge of unmeasured 
strength, for clothes could not completely con¬ 
ceal the play of gliding muscles and lean, tire¬ 
less legs. To the “outsider” in the North seek¬ 
ing “color,” Ducharme would have been a dis¬ 
tinct disappointment. 

In a way, he was no less to Gloria, innocent 
that she was, for she had rather looked forward 
to finding in him some counterpart to the fabled 
courier de bois of old. The man’s eyes and his 
poise soon sent the thought scurrying from her 
mind. She saw his face light up as he greeted 
Malvern, his eyes warming. She heard him 
speak then, and his speech was as free of accent 
and idiom as. her own. Jim introduced Du¬ 
charme to her a moment later. He bowed over 
her hand and called her madame . 

Gloria liked him immensely. She was very 
consciously thrilled. Ducharme was a new ex¬ 
perience for her, for she had never met a man 
of his type before. There was something un- 


84 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

deniably primitive about him, something of the 
wild—big and fine as the wilderness in which 
he had his being. 

A launch provided the means of transporta¬ 
tion between Chicoutimi and Bois Blanc, and 
when Pierre had directed the transferring of 
the trunks and hand luggage to the boat, Jim 
and Gloria and he had a bite to eat at a quaint 
little inn overlooking the river. 

On the way down river, Malvern asked 
Gloria how she liked Pierre. 

“He’s a black-haired bronze god,” she an¬ 
swered enthusiastically. She did not add that 
she saw in him a dreamer—a poet singing his 
love of the great woods and the white, moody 


river. 


CHAPTER XIII 


BOUND TO THE SOIL 

Life at Bois Blanc was more or less different 
from the routine existence both Jim and Gloria 
were accustomed to. It was only natural that 
for the moment their interest was caught by it. 
In spite of the fishing, which had never been 
better, Malvern was the first of the two to tire 
of the big woods. He was sensible enough to 
understand why he found it impossible to enjoy 
the place as he had in other years. Thoughts 
of Anne Cabot haunted his waking hours; but 
he could not pursue his dreams of her, because 
his nearness to Gloria gave him a feeling of 
guilt which he had not known in New York. 

Gloria, being new to Bois Blanc, found many 

things to interest her, and it was many days 

after Malvern had exhausted the possibilities 

of the place before she began to take stock of 
85 


86 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


herself. For one thing, she realized that Jim 
and she had grown away from each other; they 
had not found the comradeship she had hoped 
they would find in the north. The realization 
brought a bad day to Gloria. She had foreseen 
long trips in the woods with Jim, fishing ex¬ 
peditions up and down the foaming river, a 
resumption of their all too brief honeymoon. 
She smiled grimly at the thought, for these 
things did not materialize. The truth gave her 
a feeling of loneliness that was choking. She 
felt shut in by the woods. 

The servants, all humble French-Canadians, 
had been very gracious to her. Ducharme had 
stopped at nothing in her service. She saw 
now that but for him she would have realized 
her position days back. He had never tired 
of showing her the secrets of Bois Blanc—the 
beaver dam in Lac St. Etienne, the deer runs, 
the salt lick where the young moose swaggered 
about and the great chute through which the 
Saguenay rushes to the St. Lawrence. 


BOUND TO THE SOIL 87 

Whatever he had done for her had been 
tendered with the deepest courtesy. Several 
times Gloria had spoken of making the rather 
long trip to the falls of the Au Sable. Jim 
had not evinced any interest in the proposed 
outing and after several half-hearted promises 
to take her he had finally suggested that she go 
with Ducharme. 

The thought of being alone in the woods 
for a day with Pierre sent a thrill through 
Gloria. She was so conscious of it that she 
felt a sense of embarrassment, and when Pierre 
asked her to go the following day she at first 
refused. 

The matter came up again at dinner-time, 
and due to Malvern's urging, she at last con¬ 
sented to be ready very early the next morning. 

Ducharme was waiting for her when she 
came down for breakfast. He had seen to the 
lunch and canoe, and after a hurried bite they 
set off. 

Gloria had never been on the river at such 


88 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


an early hour and she found it singularly beau¬ 
tiful. There was a rare sparkle in her eyes 
as she reclined in the bow of the canoe facing 
Pierre. 

Their way led up-river for an hour. The cur¬ 
rent was against them but Ducharme sent the 
frail craft along without any seeming effort. 

Song birds trilled their morning chansons in 
the woods which crowded close to the river’s 
edge. Once the pleasant droning of a distant 
sawmill reached their ears. Later, they passed 
an old cabin set in a tiny clearing. A man 
came to the door and called to Pierre. 

Ducharme answered him in his native 
tongue. It was just one countryman’s call to 
another. Gloria understood it, and it gave her 
a feeling of peace which she had not found at 
Bois Blanc, for even though the camp was deep 
in the wilderness its thought was the thought 
of New York. 

“Old Esdras has a pretty hard time of it, 
here on the river, now that his son is gone,” 


BOUND TO THE SOIL 89 

Pierre said when they had left the cabin behind. 
“He is too old to go to the lumber camps now. 
There wasn’t a better man on the river than 
Esdras, twenty years ago.” 

“His son is dead?” Gloria queried. 

Pierre smiled. 

“No, gone to Quebec. The wages are good 
there, but the expenses are high. Boys don’t 
think of that.” 

Gloria had wondered several times why 
Pierre remained on the river. She put it as a 
question now. 

“This is my country,” he answered warmly. 
“Some day we will have riches here. My father 
worked very hard to make a living. My mother 
worked with him. But they often said that they 
had it easy compared to what their fathers and 
mothers had put up with. I suppose I might be 
pitied by some for the long hours and hard work 
that comes my way, but it is nothing. What¬ 
ever there is here my people hacked out of the 
wilderness. We owe little to any man. Always 


PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


90 

life becomes easier for us. Our children will 
not have a bad time of it at all. Some, like 
Esdras’ boy, for instance, are impatient; they 
run off to Montreal or Quebec. Usually, they 
come back. It is that which gives me such con¬ 
fidence in our future—we come back home. 
Perhaps you wonder what brings them back 
—it is not money.” 

“I do wonder,” Gloria replied, her interest 
caught by Ducharme’s enthusiasm. 

“IPs the soil—we are bound to it as a race! 
That is why I stay. I listened many times to 
the stories my friends brought back about 
Quebec. I saw those very friends, fresh from 
school, go to the cities to struggle for a foot¬ 
hold as a doctor or lawyer. They thought there 
was no place for them here. The world thinks 
we are an ignorant people, that few of us are 
educated. I assure you Quebec and Montreal 
are overflowing with young professional men 
whose fathers were habitants. We need those 
.men here; their chance is here, too. I know 


BOUND TO THE SOIL 


9i 


how my father and mother slaved that I might 
have an education. I believe I am doing the 
best with it by staying here on the Saguenay. 
Some day these woods will be gone. We will 
be raising wheat where the forests now stand. 
We've got water-power, cheap transportation. 
That means mills, factories. We will have cities 
of our own. In the meantime we need our edu¬ 
cated men; public opinion must be molded, our 
rights looked after, our aims voiced to England 
and the rest of Canada." 

Ducharme was revealing a side of his nature 
which until now had been as a closed book to 
Gloria. She was not only surprised but de¬ 
lighted. Studying his face she thought his 
nose and mouth revealed the idealist. His 
rugged jaw proclaimed a man of action, how¬ 
ever, and not a dreamer. 

“You set a wonderful goal for your people to 
reach," she murmured. 

Pierre smiled. “I am sure of them," he ex¬ 
claimed. “Only, we must not be afraid to pro- 


PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


92 

claim ourselves. We are no longer French; we 
are French and Indian—true Canadians if there 
are any. We must not let Canada and Eng¬ 
land forget the debt they owe us. They must 
not take our schools and our native speech away 
from us. We want the opportunity to develop 
a literature of our own.” 

“You know Hemon’s stories of the Lake St. 
John country ?” Gloria asked. “I thought they 
were very fine.” 

“I know every word of them. He caught the 
soul of my people and put it on paper. He 
realized that we are not a race of clowns speak¬ 
ing a comic supplement mixture of disembowled 
English and ridiculous French. But Hemon 
was not the first to catch the truth.” 

Gloria was immensely interested, and from 
Hemon they turned to the Garneaus—father 
and son—to Gerin-Lajoie and to the folk-songs 
and folk-lore which Pierre knew so well. At 
Gloria’s urging he sang “Malbrouck” and 
“Brigadier” for her. 


BOUND TO THE SOIL 


93 

His was not a trained voice, but such songs 
ask less than that of the singer, and with 
Gloria’s encouragement he sang one after an¬ 
other, not forgetting that favorite of all 
French-Canadians —“a la claire fontaine ” 

Soon after they had turned up the Au Sable 
they saught sight of a doe and her young fawn 
standing knee-deep in the water, lazily lapping 
it with their pink tongues. 

Pierre nodded to Gloria to sit still and with 
the slightest motion of his arms he sent the 
canoe toward the deer. They were within 
forty feet of them before the startled animals 
became aware of their presence. They leaped 
clear of the water, turned end for end while 
still in the air, and dashed to cover. 

“They were beautiful, weren’t they?” Gloria 
exclaimed excitedly. 

“I know of no animal that is not when you 
find it like this. That is true even of a cow 
moose. I’ve watched them for hours.” 

It seemed to Gloria that he knew every secret 


94 PLAYTHINGS OK DESIRE 

of the river, lake and woods. Spellbound, she 
listened to his tales. The river narrowed grad¬ 
ually until it flowed between high walls. Far 
ahead Gloria caught the first glimpse of the 
falls. 

Some day tourists will make a well-worn path 
to the falls of the Au Sable. Not that they 
need the world’s acclaim to render them beauti¬ 
ful. From a distance they seem to pour over 
the tops of tall spruce. It is a wonderful illu¬ 
sion. Pierre and Gloria sat silent as if by com¬ 
mon consent. The rumbling of the rushing 
water filled the canyon through which they were 
passing. 

Pierre sent the canoe ahead until the spray- 
drenched air kissed their cheeks. To be alone 
with such natural beauty added a touch of sub¬ 
limity that one can hardly hope to find at such 
world-famous falls as Niagara or Yosemite. 
This day the falls of the Au Sable were as they 
had been when man had first bowed reverently 
before them. 


BOUND TO THE SOIL 


95 

“I understand why you asked me to leave 
the kodak behind/’ Gloria whispered. “To 
dare to carry away such beauty would be a 
sacrilege.” 

Ducharme’s soul was in his eyes at that mo¬ 
ment, but Gloria was unaware of it. 

“Can we go nearer?” she asked. 

“We can,” he answered slowly. “If you 
don’t mind a little wetting we can circle under 
the falls.” 

“Do! I should love to stand beneath that 
wall of water.” 

“There is another risk beside the wetting,” 
Pierre smiled, “a local superstition. My peo¬ 
ple say that the man and the woman who stand 
beneath the falls of the Au Sable will share a 
great sorrow and a great joy together.” 

For some reason not altogether clear to her, 
Gloria allowed the moment to become a more 
or less awkward one, when a smile or a word 
could have saved it. There was little about Du¬ 
charme’s manner to suggest that he attached 


96 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

any significance to what was otherwise nothing 
but the innocent chatter of the countryside. 

“A joy and a sorrow/’ Gloria murmured at 
last, her voice trailing off into a brittle little 
laugh. “Well, at least it’s a sporting proposi¬ 
tion, isn’t it? . . . You are not superstitious?” 

Gloria’s voice quavered strangely. 

Pierre shook his head. “Of course not,” he 
said, “and I presume you are not either. Don’t 
be alarmed. My people took a mad delight in 
putting inhibitions on themselves. My mother 
had the entire list at her finger-tips and she 
could not stir about in these woods without 
being reminded of this warning or that. What 
do you say—shall we go under the falls or 
not?” 

“To refuse now would be ridiculous, wouldn’t 
it? Let us go by all means.” 

The thrill of standing beneath the tumbling 
white wall with its almost deafening roar quite 
erased from Gloria’s mind any thought of the 
legend. Ducharme was almost equally im- 


BOUND TO THE SOIL 


97 

pressed, but there was a light in his eyes which 
the falls of the Au Sable could hardly have 
called to life. 

When they came into the sunlight again it 
was as if they were stepping out of a cathedral, 
for in spite of the deafening roar the majestic 
beauty of the spot had put a hush upon their 
souls. 

Ducharme made camp and prepared lunch. 
In a hundred ways he proved his knowledge of 
the trail, contriving comforts for her that the 
uninitiated would have marveled at. 

When they started for home Pierre gave 
Gloria the paddle and let her steer their 
course. The current was with them now and 
they were swept along without taking a 
stroke. 

Evening came on as they reached the Sague¬ 
nay. 

“Only the moon is missing now,” Gloria said 
dreamily. 

“We will have a moon before we reach Bois 


98 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Blanc/' Ducharme answered.- “A young moon, 
at that/' 

Later, without warning, it popped up over 
the blackness of the forest—a pale, lemon- 
colored moon. 

Conversation died away with its coming. 
Around a bend the distant lights of Bois Blanc 
twinkled. It was almost with a feeling of re¬ 
gret that Gloria recognized them. For a day 
she had been in a different world, and the mood 
was on her now to go drifting on forever. 


CHAPTER XIV 


ANNE CHANGES HER MIND 

Malvern showed no interest in Gloria’s trip 
with Ducharme. If he referred to it at all, it 
was only most casually. The day had been a 
happy one for her, and failing to sense his de¬ 
liberate snubbing, she was at some pains to 
capture his attention. Malvern would not en¬ 
thuse, however. 

It began to dawn on Gloria that whatever of 
happiness had been hers at Bois Blanc had been 
due to Pierre’s untiring attention. Jim had 
been aloof from the first. This train of thought 
made her miserably self-conscious. She saw 
now that she had made all of the advances. Not 
once had Malvern met her halfway. The blow 
to her pride was almost unbearable. Smarting 
under the hurt, her dream castles tottering 
about her head, she dressed on the following 

99 


ioo PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


morning resolved to be as formal with him as 
he could possibly wish her to be. 

Malvern had arisen early, however, and was 
well on his way to Chicoutimi by the time Gloria 
came downstairs. Pierre found her after break¬ 
fast. The lights had winked out the evening 
before, and he had been up since dawn with the 
engineer, trying to discover the cause. Gloria 
had not seen him approaching, and she looked 
up in some embarrassment, believing he had 
caught a hint of the loneliness which she had 
not been able to shake off. 

“Has Felix found the trouble ?” she asked 
hurriedly. 

“It is the dynamo, Madame,” Ducharme re¬ 
plied. “He tells me it will have to be rewound. 
He has it working again, however.” 

The dynamo? Gloria remembered now; it 
was because of it that they had been forced to 
postpone coming. Jim had said: “Pierre had 
to send to Quebec for an electrician. The place 
will be in darkness until the dynamo is re- 


ANNE CHANGES HER MIND ioi 


paired.” More to make conversation, rather 
than anything else, Gloria said: 

“Why, I understood it had been repaired but 
recently.” 

“No,” he said hesitatingly, “this is the first 
trouble we have had with the lights since the 
plant was put in. I do not remember having 
said anything to the contrary.” 

So Jim had lied. He had wanted an excuse 
for staying in New York. Gloria’s thoughts 
leaped to Renee Grant. Was it because of 
her that he had been so loath to leave? 
She laughed as she got up, but her voice 
sounded harsh. Had she been looking at 
Ducharme, she would have seen his mouth 
straighten. 

“Antoine has caught a young wolf,” he said 
as they walked to the door. “I thought you 
might be interested in seeing it.” 

“Are you going to kill it ?” Gloria asked. 

“No, Madame. It is a female. I am going 
to mate her with one of our dogs. For a long 


102 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


while, I have been anxious to make the cross. 
Antoine has the wolf at his cabin; I am going 
across the river in a few minutes to see it. If 
you would care to go-” 

Gloria smiled bravely. “No,” she said slowly. 
“I don’t feel up to it to-day, Pierre.” 

When she reached her room she locked her¬ 
self in. She said over and over that she couldn’t 
go on. Jim had, apparently, made his choice 
between her and Renee Grant. Well, he should 
have her; she would not stand in his way. 

Several times during the day she was at the 
point of sending one of the servants to Chicou¬ 
timi with a wire for Abe Ascher. She remem¬ 
bered that Abe had often said that a theatrical 
star could never regain his or her full luster 
if the light had once been turned off. She knew 
how true this was; but surely her public had 
not forgotten her in the short time she had been 
away. Abe would be glad to have her back. 
That she did not go through with her resolve 
was only because of pride. 



ANNE CHANGES HER MIND 103 

She began to hope that Malvern would bring 
their affairs to a climax; but he said no word. 
Gradually, by degrees, they came to a tacit un¬ 
derstanding of their positions, and this without 
either having spoken. As time went on, they 
unconsciously ceased practicing the pretense 
they had indulged in for the sake of Ducharme 
and the servants. 

****** * 
Malvern had a brief note from Anne in early 
August. She wrote that she would not come 
north; but he still believed that she would. The 
direct result of her letter was to set him to won¬ 
dering what effect Gloria’s divorcing him would 
have on his business career. He did not doubt 
that she would divorce him; he was anxious 
that she should. Nothing could keep him from 
having Anne; but she must not be drawn into 
the affair. He knew that Gloria did not suspect 
his interest in her, although he felt certain that 
she had found out about Renee. He smiled at 
thought of her. It was rather “rich,” her being 


104 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

brought into his life again after he had broken 
with her. And he was through with Renee; 
nothing could be more definite than that. He 
shuddered, however, as there passed before him 
in review the details of this now dead “affair” 
as the metropolitan newspapers would parade 
them. He expected to ask for some immense 
loans in the late fall; being a target for the 
newspapers wouldn’t help his cause any. 

Two weeks later Anne wrote Gloria that she 
and the Warrens and Brom Jones would be 
up in another ten days. Jim made a very good 
pretense of not being excited by this news. 
Secretly, he was as impatient for their coming 
as a boy for a new toy. Fate must have smiled, 
for Gloria was as eager as he to see them. Any 
one would have been acceptable; Anne, doubly 
so. 


CHAPTER XV 


NEW ARRIVALS 

Servants are quite the same whether one 
finds them in the wilds of Quebec or in New 
York or Newport. The love-tragedy being en¬ 
acted at Bois Blanc would have set the tongues 
of serving men and women of any race to wag¬ 
ging. But Jim and Gloria's audience had a 
flair for romance. Each drew from it his or 
her own conclusions, but with an accompanying 
thrill. There was another at Bois Blanc who 
interested them even more than Gloria and Jim; 
that was Ducharme. These Americans were 
not understandable, anyhow; but they had al¬ 
ways fancied that Pierre was an open book to 
them. 

Neither Malvern nor Gloria noted the change 

in him, but old Sidonie, or Julie, could have 

told them. Something had stilled his song. No 
105 


io6 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


more did they hear his voice in the woods. The 
smile with which he had always greeted them 
was gone. They remembered him in other sum¬ 
mers ; he had not been like this—solemn-faced, 
aloof, even irritable. Amiel had come upon him 
once as he lay on his stomach staring moodily 
at his reflection in the mirror-like water of the 
big pool below the springs at Grande Marais. 
He was talking to himself. Amiel had silently 
stolen away, but he had seen the suffering in 
Ducharme’s eyes as the big man vainly sought 
to solve the riddle of his existence. 

In other years Pierre had roamed the woods 
and rivers in August with a song in his heart. 
He had answered the chattering squirrels and 
impudent jays; the laughing goose had made 
merry with him; Ipwamis, the crow, and he 
had talked together at length. Now they called 
to him in vain. The red-tailed deer and the 
foxes sprang away at sound of his clumsy foot¬ 
steps. Never before had he found his duties 
at Bois Blanc a care; now everything was 


NEW ARRIVALS 


107 


wrong. But in all his world nothing so out 
of key with its surroundings as he. He felt 
that he must get away; no contract held him 
to Bois Blanc. And yet, in his saner moments, 
he knew that he could not leave; something in 
his heart held him chained to the place; he could 
not go away from her. 

He had known this since the day they had 
spent together on the Au Sable. Such a day 
would never come again. In some way the 
weeks would pass; September would come, 
bringing the day when the trunks would be 
placed aboard the launch and the trip south¬ 
ward begun. In fancy he saw himself standing 
upon the platform at Chicoutimi waving good- 
by to her. It would he good-by, too; he would 
not stay on the Saguenay; another summer 
would find him following the distant Mackenzie 
into the Far North. Thus would little madame 
go out of his life, and he out of hers. But he 
would have his dreams. She would never know 
what she had meant to him. 


io8 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


And yet, he did love her. Time would not 
change that. Her spirit had captured his with¬ 
out his being aware of it; but in the days im¬ 
mediately following that first happy week or 
two, he had fought his desire for her. It was 
wasted effort, for the magic of her had crept 
into his blood, and wherever he turned he found 
something to remind him of the happiness which 
could never be his. 

Ducharme believed he had guarded his secret 
well, though he found it almost impossible to 
be civil to Malvern. He had seen him leave 
her alone for days at a time. He had heard 
Malvern’s excuses, the lies which which he 
avoided his wife, the rebuffs to her advances. 

Pierre knew enough of the world to under¬ 
stand that only another woman could make a 
man treat a wife as Malvern treated Gloria. 
As the break between them widened, Ducharme 
ceased his fight against himself, for in his eyes 
the woman he loved was no longer the wife of 
another. It seared Ducharme’s soul to see 


NEW ARRIVALS 


109 

Gloria open her arms to Malvern, only to be 
scorned, while he stood ready to sell his life at 
a word from her. His heart leaped with sav¬ 
age joy when he saw Gloria turn from Jim. 
The end could not be far away. He, Du- 
charme, might not have her; but, at least, he 
would have the satisfaction of knowing that 
Malvern had lost her. 

Pierre heard of the expected guests with 
seeming indifference. In truth, he was indif¬ 
ferent to their coming; it could matter but little 
to him. He did wonder just how the Malverns 
were to comport themselves before their 
friends. 

The following week found Anne’s party com¬ 
fortably established at Bois Blanc. The excite¬ 
ment proved a good tonic for Gloria. Malvern 
lost his air of boredom completely. He found 
Anne more radiant than ever. To all appear¬ 
ances, life in the big house seemed quite as gay 
as any one could wish. Brom Jones was good 
company wherever one found him. Warren 


no PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

and his wife were a bit too obsessed with their 
escape from the dry land of their birth to please 
Gloria. But then, it had become quite the mode 
to drink with abandon, whether one enjoyed it 
or not. 

Anne got a thrill out of Ducharme. She did 
her outrageous ’best to flirt with him. Mal¬ 
vern's fowning eyes made her more determined 
than ever to have some amusement at Pierre’s 
expense. Such an experiment was foolhardy 
with Ducharme in his present mood. Anne per¬ 
sisted, however, ignoring the danger signals 
and smilingly unaware of the nature of the 
high explosive she was toying with. 

The end came suddenly, and with an abrupt¬ 
ness that jarred. 


CHAPTER XVI 


DEEP WATER 

For two or three nights the bull moose had 
been bugling—sure enough sign that the Run¬ 
ning Moon of the antlered tribes was not far 
off. Soon the moose and deer would be moving 
away to the higher hills. 

Anne's interest in this was slight, but she 
made it a pretext for being alone in the woods 
with Ducharme. At first, Pierre endeavored 
to escape going, but he changed his mind sud¬ 
denly, too suddenly not to have aroused the sus¬ 
picions of a shrewder woman than Anne. 

They crossed the river the following morn¬ 
ing. Once in the woods, Pierre led Anne on 
and on for three hours. He could have shown 
her moose in thirty minutes had he so chosen. 
Noontime came, and it found a very tired Anne. 

They never were more than a mile and half 
hi 


112 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


from the river, and not even that far away from 
Antoine's cabin. Anne, however, believed they 
were many miles from home. 

Ducharme had not proved any more amen¬ 
able in the woods than at the lodge. Anne's 
temper was worn thin. She disavowed any in¬ 
terest in seeing moose in their native haunt. 
Ducharme insisted on going on, now that they 
were so near their journey's end. He had re¬ 
solved that this day should teach Miss Anne 
Cabot a most wholesome lesson, and the begin¬ 
ning was not yet. 

Anne was not suspicious, but she was tired. 
And she was resourceful. Ten minutes later 
she fell. Pierre lifted her to her feet, but Anne 
promptly went limp in his arms. A cry of pain 
escaped her as he put her down and removed 
her shoe. The ankle, which Anne insisted had 
been sprained, seemed right enough to Pierre. 
While Anne removed her stocking, he found 
a pool of water and making a compress, bound 
the ankle with extreme care. 


DEEP WATER 


ii 3 

Anne watched him as he worked over her, 
but she did not catch his eyes. Pierre’s mouth 
should have told her that he saw through her 
little game. By the time he finished, Ducharme 
had perfected his plans. He foresaw that he 
would have to carry Anne. Antoine’s cabin 
was not more than half a mile from where they 
stood. 

He resolved that the cabin should stand him 
in good stead. 

Anne’s smile returned as Ducharme trudged 
off with her, her arms about his neck, her lips 
invitingly close to his. 

Pierre pretended a great surprise on finding 
the cabin so near. Anne was not so well pleased, 
but she had to appear grateful as Ducharme 
placed her upon Antoine’s bed. He stepped 
outside for a moment, and Anne heard him 
talking to the old man. 

“I have sent Antoine to the lodge,” he said 
when he reentered the cabin. “He’ll have the 
launch brought as near here as is possible.” 


114 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

“You are very kind,” Anne murmured. 
“When do you expect they will come?” 

“Why some time in the morning,” Du- 
charme answered slowly. 

“Morning?” Anne gasped, a little fright¬ 
ened. “Are we so far from the river?” 

“It is some distance and your ankle will not 
get any better between now and evening.” 

“But we can’t stay here like this. Why did 
you send the man away?” Anne was rapidly 
losing her temper. Her face paled as she saw 
Ducharme lock the door. 

“Why do you lock the door?” she demanded. 

Pierre gazed at her as if puzzled. 

“Er . . . some one might come,” he said 
pointedly. 

Anne was sitting stiffly erect by this time. 
“I only pray that some one does come,” she 
exclaimed. 

“Yes—?” Ducharme’s teeth gleamed in a 
smile. “I do not hope so,” he murmured as 
he came to the bed and sat down beside her. 


DEEP WATER 


ii 5 

Anne drew away from him, her eyes widening 
as she caught his meaning. 

“We are alone at last, ma petite” she heard 
him whisper. “My order to Antoine was, not 
to come back before morning.” 

Ducharme caught her hand. Anne shook 
as she felt his fingers tighten over hers. 

“You have thought me cold,” Pierre went 
on. “You have mocked my shyness. Well, 
mademoiselle, I will show you that there’s fire 
in me; I’ll prove to you that Pierre Ducharme 
is not cold. Come, let me kiss you; I am hungry 
for you, ma petite.” 

Anne sprang from the bed, her fists clenched, 
her eyes snapping with anger. 

“Don’t touch me, you wild savage!” she cried. 

“But your ankle, mademoiselle!” Ducharme 
exclaimed solicitously. 

Anne gave him a withering glance. 

“There is nothing wrong with my ankle,” 
she snapped. “I- 

“Of course,” Pierre interrupted. “I under- 



n6 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


stood your ruse. That was why I sent Antoine 
away. You are not frightened now, my little 
songbird, eh? We will be very happy together.” 

“You beast!’’ Anne screamed as Ducharme 
tried to draw her into his embrace. “How dare 
you speak to me like this?” 

“How dare I ? I but take you at your own 
valuation, mademoiselle. You made love to 


“I’m sorry—I’m sorry,” Anne cried. “For¬ 
give me! It was just in fun. Please—please 
take me away from here. What will Jim say? 
I—I—” 

Ducharme’s eyes narrowed. 

“Does it matter so much what he says ?” 

“And the others—any one who knows me,” 
Anne stumbled on, confused by her slip. “This 
lonely cabin—the two of us together! Do— 
do take me out of here—even if we have to 
spend the night on the trail.” 

Pierre shook his head as he stood over her 
with folded arms. 




DEEP WATER 


ii 7 

“No/’ said he. “You tried to play with Du- 
charme. Do you think he is such a fool that 
he will let you go now?” 

Anne looked about wildly for a weapon with 
which to defend herself. A heavy water-jug 
caught her eye. She snatched it off the table 
and swung it above her head. 

Pierre’s hand shot out and grasped her wrist. 

“No, ma petite” he said softly. His fingers 
closed, and the jug fell to the floor. 

Anne broke away from him and ran to the 
door. She had seen him lock it; but she was 
no longer in command of her faculties. She 
hurled her body against the hand-hewn planks. 
A sob shook her as she realized how completely 
she was at Ducharme’s mercy. She raised her 
hands beseechingly as she sank to the floor. 

“Please— please!” she begged, “don’t do this 
thing! Forgive me. Unlock this door and let 
me go. Oh, Pierre—Pierre!” Her voice broke 
so that she could not go on. She began to sob. 
Ducharme raised his hand protestingly. 


n8 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


“Stop!” he exclaimed. He went to the door 
and threw it open. “You shall go,” he went 
on. “Whenever you knew you were in no dan¬ 
ger at all—when circumstances guaranteed 
your safety—you were bold enough; you tried 
to impress me with your wickedness. Ha!” 
Ducharme's mocking laugh made Anne wince. 
“You are only a lily-pad—an empty shell. You 
have nothing to fear from me. Go! And you 
will walk every step of the way.” 

Anne got to her feet and followed him as he 
set off at a swinging stride. Fifteen minutes 
brought them to the river and Antoine, asleep 
in his canoe, waiting there as Pierre had or¬ 
dered. Almost directly across the river stood 
the lodge. 

Anne's face went scarlet as she sensed the 
deception of which she had been the butt. Be¬ 
side herself, she cried: 

'You have made a fool out of me!” 

“So?” Ducharme questioned evenly. “I 
never contradict a lady.” 


DEEP WATER 


119 

Anne was so furious that she was on the 
point of attacking him with her fists. 

“I despise you!” she exclaimed. “You prove 
the folly of trying to make a gentleman out of 
a servant—and that’s all you really are—a 
servant!” 

The retort stung, but Ducharme’s face did 
not betray it. 

“And servants are easily dismissed,” he an¬ 
swered, anticipating Anne. 

“You understand me very well. When the 
Malverns hear what I have to say, they-” 

“But it is not probable that they will,” Pierre 
said with annoying assurance, “for I shall say 
nothing, and I am sure that you will not.” 

Anne stamped her foot angrily, so beside her¬ 
self that she could not speak, Pierre held the 
canoe ready for her, but she made no attempt 
to step into it. 

“It is a long way across the river,” Du- 
charme warned. “Your voice would hardly 



120 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


carry to the house. I would advise you to step 
in.” 

Anne glared at him. Something whispered 
to her that he meant what he inferred. Sullenly 
then, she got into the canoe. Ducharme shoved 
off a second later. Neither found it necessary 
to address the other on the way across, and of 
course Anne found it the better part of wisdom 
to say nothing either to Jim or Gloria. 


CHAPTER XVII 


“let me be in time” 

The next morning broke gray and cloudy. By 
breakfast time it began to drizzle. Noontime 
found it raining in earnest. Clouds of mist 
enveloped the woods. During the rest of that 
day and all of the two succeeding ones rain fell. 
The inhabitants of Bois Blanc exhausted their 
imaginations as the storm continued and the 
humidity grew heavier. Tempers became short 
and sharp. 

Gloria refused to be held indoors by the 
weather. The shallowness of the others had 
been brought home to her with annoying clear¬ 
ness. And yet, for a week or two, they had 
served to get her away from herself. It had 
been but a temporary respite. They would be 
going back next week; perhaps Jim and she 

would go with them. Somehow, the thought of 
121 


122 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


New York was peculiarly distressing to Gloria 
—a shifting of the scenery in the great farce 
she had made of her life. 

The continuous rain seemed to have no effect 
on Ducharme. He went about whatever con¬ 
cerned him with his habitual poise. Gloria met 
him as she was tramping through the wet 
woods. He greeted her with a ready smile. It 
was the first time they had been alone in a num¬ 
ber of days. Gloria realized that she had been 
avoiding him. It startled her, for she had not 
kept away from Ducharme through any con¬ 
scious effort. She tried to tell herself that 
there was no reason why she should, and yet 
even as the thought came, she dropped her eyes 
from his; and only because Ducharme seemed 
to read her so clearly, to see through her pre¬ 
tense. It was as if he understood just how 
unhappy she was. And he stirred something 
deep in her. She had been conscious of it be¬ 
fore, and as they walked back to the house, 
Gloria was aware of a feeling of confusion and 


“LET ME BE IN TIME” 123 

vague uneasiness which she found it hard to 
conceal. 

Anne and Brom Jones had ventured out upon 
the porch. Anne got up and went in as Gloria 
and Pierre came up the steps. The three of 
them stood and watched a canoe shooting down 
river at express train speed. It was Antoine 
making for the landing. He had dragged his 
canoe up-stream half a mile before attempting 
to cross the river, now running a torrent. 

“That ought to be sporty enough for any 
one!” Brom exclaimed. 

Pierre grinned. “Too sporty for most,” he 
answered. 

Shortly after two o’clock the clouds lifted. 
An hour later, the sun peered down on the 
steaming world. 

When Gloria came down the wide veranda 
was deserted. The river was booming as it had 
for three days, but bathed in sunshine it seemed 
harmless enough. Gloria had been thrilled by 
Antoine’s mad ride, and as she watched the 


124 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

river racing along she decided to do as she had 
seen him do. Ducharme had taught her how 
to handle a canoe. She did not realize that such 
skill as she possessed was no match for the 
river in its present condition. Pierre had 
warned Anne and Brom off the river shortly 
after lunch. To fight the current running now 
took muscles of steel. A mile below the lodge 
the river narrowed for the Chute—a half-mile 
of bad water at any time of the year, and now 
sure to be a whirling caldron. The booming 
they heard on the steps of the lodge was the 
distant rumble of the water ripping through 
the ragged Chute. 

Gloria expected nothing more thrilling than 
to be swept to the opposite bank; after which 
she intended to cut back to the western shore 
again. But her canoe had not cleared the land¬ 
ing before she realized that she had done a very 
foolish thing in venturing on the river. The 
boathouse was deserted at the time, or else she 
would have called for help. When once the 


“LET ME BE IN TIME” 125 

current struck the frail craft, it swept it out 
into mid-stream as if it had been a cork. 

Frightened though she was, Gloria was un¬ 
deniably thrilled by her wild ride. As the 
shoreline began to slip past without her nearing 
it, she put every ounce of strength that she 
possessed into her paddle strokes. She might 
better have saved her strength. Her ears 
caught the rising boom of the Chute. Stouter 
hearts than hers had shivered at thought of 
being swept through it. Icy fingers seemed to 
clutch her. Terror-stricken, she half got to 
her feet. A movement of the canoe warned 
her in time, and she sank to her knees, her 
paddle gone. 

She turned a blanched face toward the lodge. 
She tried to cry out, but her parched throat 
strangled her voice. With clearness truly 
awful she saw how futile it was to hope for 
help. Even if it came now, it would be too late. 
In a few brief minutes, the jagged rocks that 
guarded the Chute would be ripping her canoe 


126 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


to ribbons. And yet Gloria could not take her 
eyes away from the house. Where was Du- 
charme? Of them all, she thought only of 
Pierre. 

She blinked her eyes as she thought she 
caught a bit of moving color on the veranda, 
. . . Her eyes had not deceived her—the bit of 
flaming red moved—she knew Sue Warren’s 
scarlet sweater! Other figures came out of the 
house—two or three—she could not be sure. 
Would they see her? What could they do to 
save her? Gloria raised her hands to God. 
There was one who would not let his own safety 
hold him back—she prayed that he might be 
one of the moving specks on the comfortable 
veranda. 

A whole second passed—and no one dashed 
toward the waiting canoe. It was an eternity 
Gloria shut her eyes and turned away. No need 
to look again—Pierre was not there! But he 
was! At the moment he was leaping over the 
veranda railing and dashing for the boat-house. 



"LET ME BE IN TIME” 127 

The Warrens and Brom and he had finished 
a rubber of bridge but a moment ago. He had 
been the last to come out. The distant canoe, 
drifting broadside to the current, caught his eye 
almost immediately. He snatched up a pair of 
glasses and focused them upon the dancing 
speck. The others had caught his excitement, 
and as he let the glasses fall, they heard him 
groan. 

"Good God!” he cried. "Gloria!” 

Warren tried to question him, but he hurled 
him out of his way. Like a deer, he took the 
railing. Thirty seconds later they heard the 
launch motor begin to bark. Its purring rose 
to a whine. Then, like a jack out of its box, the 
swift craft shot,out into the river. With a wide 
sweep, Ducharme swung down-stream, the 
nose of the boat buried in the water, a white 
wake marking where it had passed but a second 
ago. Engine and current pulled together ; 
faster and faster the launch leaped ahead. The 
terrific strain on the hull started the seams. 




128 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


“Rip!” Ducharme roared. “Ill drive you 
until you fall apart!” His eyes were wild. He 
tore off his clothes as the boat shot on. “Let me 
be in time,” he mumbled over and over. “Let 
me get there in time!” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


“he’s a man!” 

Although Ducharme realized that he gained 
rapidly on the bouncing canoe it was even more 
apparent to those on shore. In the brief mo¬ 
ment since he had left the landing, Pierre had 
cut down the distance between himself and 
Gloria by half. Even so, his effort seemed a 
hopeless one. In another ten minutes they 
would see the canoe sucked down into the 
Chute. Already the frail bark was moving 
faster as the river narrowed for its plunge. 

“He’s throwing his life away,” Brom mut¬ 
tered. “Even if he catches her, what can he 
do? The launch will be ground to bits.” 

“I guess he’s not thinking of that,” Warren 
answered sarcastically. “If I were only half 
as clever as I am I could tell you why he is 

129 


130 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

taking a hundred-to-one chance on saving her. 
I guess both of you understand me.” 

Brom turned away frankly disgusted. 

“But he’s a man” Sue Warren sobbed. 

“He’s all that!” Brom agreed. “If we could 
only do something to help him,” he cried. “We 
stand here like worms while they’re fighting 
for their lives. Where’s Malvern? Isn’t there 
some way we can get down to the Chute ? My 
God, let us do something!” 

He caught the sound of horses breaking into 
a gallop just then. A second later Malvern 
and Felix, the engineer, who had awakened 
Jim from a sound nap, dashed around the cor¬ 
ner of the house and into the woods. Antoine 
and the servants came running now. 

“It’s Malvern—Malvern and Felix!” Brom 
cried. “Antoine!” he shouted then. “Is there 
a road to the Chute?” 

“Oui, m'sieu ” Antoine said huskily. “Dat’s 
pretty good road; but wat use de road? No 
use! Not’ing come hout de Chute alive. Mon 


HE’S A MAN! 1 


grand Pierre ’’ he mumbled as he turned away, 
rubbing a tear across his cheek with the back of 
his grizzled hand. 

“There may be something we can do,” Brom 
declared. “I won’t stand here like this. Come 
on, Warren!” 

They ran down the steps and across the clear¬ 
ing and into the woods. Brom could hear the 
others following them. For the time being the 
trees shut Gloria and Pierre from view, but 
a quarter of a mile further on the road topped 
a rise that brought them above the river. Brom 
was still in the lead. He gave a mighty shout as 
he saw the launch within fifteen feet of the 
canoe. Glasses to his eyes, he watched. Gloria 
was on her feet. Ducharme was shouting to 
her. The Frenchman was stripped to the 
waist. Brom could see him set himself as the 
bow of the launch breasted the stern of the 
canoe. Saw-toothed rocks, black and grim, 
loomed just ahead, the water a seething white 
as it whirled about them. 


i 3 2 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

“He’s going to jump,” Warren cried An¬ 
toine and the others shaded their eyes with 
their hands to see the more clearly. 

“Mon Dieu! Dey are in de Chute!” Antoine 
groaned. 

A second passed. Without glasses it was 
almost impossible to tell what was happening. 
Instinctively they turned to Brom. They saw 
him stiffen. Their faces went white as they 
saw his fingers tighten upon the binoculars. 
Suddenly his fist shot into the air. 

“He’s got her! He's got her!" he yelled. 
“He’s got her into the launch!” 

“But he’ll never swing the launch around 
now,” Warren cried. 

“Swing her?” Brom demanded. “Swing 
hell! He’s driving her straight down the 
Chute!” 

A curtain seemed to drop over the river. 
When they looked again, launch and canoe were 
gone. 

“He played it straight to the last,” Brom 


“HE'S A MAN!” 133' 

muttered. “And we talk about thoroughbreds! 
—there goes one. I hope to God Gloria gets 
a flash of the truth before she dies.” 

Brom and Sue had walked away from the 
others. Sue put her hand on Brom’s arm as 
she said: 

“Don't worry, Brom; a woman realizes the 
truth oftener than you think. Gloria knows.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


“/ HAD TO COME” 

Even as Pierre drew Gloria into the launch, the 
canoe was crushed to kindling wood between 
the larger boat and the rocks Brom had seen. 

“Brace yourself,” he cried out. “I’m going 
to run the Chute. If the rudder doesn’t snap 
off, we may get through. But don’t jump if 
we strike—understand?— don't jump!" 

Gloria nodded that she understood. 

“Crawl back here. Get your shoes and skirt 
off. We haven’t long to wait for our answer.” 

Gloria was crying, but she was not ashamed 
of her tears. 

“You are wonderful, Pierre,” she said 
slowly, “so brave. I knew you would come if 
you were there—I wanted you to. Dear God, 
I didn’t know what I was asking. You had 

your life before you—no mistakes to undo. 
134 


“I HAD TO COME” 135 

I—” Gloria’s voice broke completely. She 
could not go on for a second or two. “I—I am 
not worth the sacrifice you are making,” she 
said at last. She placed the palm of her hand 
against his cheek. “Why did you do this thing f 
Pierre?” 

He trembled under her touch. For an instant 
they gazed at each other’s souls. 

“Madame” he breathed so low that she 
barely heard, “you—you ask what Ducharme 
cannot answer. I—I had to come.” 

“If I could repay you—” 

Pierre shook his head. 

“No— Madame, let there be no talk of repay¬ 
ing me. I am to blame; I should have warned 
you as I did the others. I have no—” The 
words died on his lips. From almost beneath 
the very bow of the boat a razor-edged ledge 
stared at him. He clutched Gloria’s arm and 
threw the wheel over. The sharp rocks cut into 
the hull as the launch veered off, raking it from 
stem to stern. 


136 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Gloria had closed her eyes as the grinding, 
tearing crash had traveled aft. She had ex¬ 
pected to find herself in the water the next 
moment. She looked about her now, unable to 
understand at first that the launch still floated. 

“The rudder is gone,” Pierre announced 
grimly, as the boat wallowed drunkenly. The 
rushing water spun the craft around then, bore 
it away. Gloria saw that the boat was settling 
rapidly. In a few minutes the motor was half 
under water. 

“Shall I try to bail it out?” she asked. 

“Save your strength,” Ducharme com¬ 
manded. “The boat will float until we are out 
of the Chute if we get by the rocks.” 

For a time it seemed that they would win 
through. The river was running so high that 
many of the barriers were well under water. 
Ducharme knew that with fair luck they would 
get as far as the lower end of the Chute without 
further mishap. He did not tell Gloria that it 
was but a brief respite before the end. Drift- 


“I HAD TO COME” 


137 

ing broadside as the launch was, nothing could 
have saved it from being battered to pieces 
against the reefs which never in his knowledge 
of the river had been under water. His only 
hope was that they would avoid injury when 
the boat struck. It was their only chance of 
escaping death. The river widened immedi¬ 
ately below the reefs, but even so it would take 
a superhuman effort to get them to shore. It 
would depend on Gloria. Injury to her would 
cost the lives of both. 

The end came as Pierre had foreseen. One 
second the reefs were a hundred yards away; 
the next the boat was being lifted out of the 
water and hurled against them. Thunder beat 
at their ears. Pierre caught one arm around 
a stanchion and cried out to Gloria to hang on 
to him. His words were barely uttered when 
the crash came—deafening, fiendish! 

Ducharme hugged Gloria tightly, but even so 
he felt her being torn away from him. The 
shattered boat poised for a brief instant. Du- 


138 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

charme felt it. Raising Gloria above his head, 
he pitched her into the swirling water and dove 
after her. He had timed himself well, for no 
sooner had he quit the launch than it crumbled. 
Suddenly, the water was filled with drifting 
wreckage. He could see Gloria just ahead of 
him. He called to her, and struck out with long 
sweeping strokes, hoping to reach her before 
the floating wreckage reached her. But the 
litter of torn timbers and broken stanchions 
outdistanced him. The roof of the small cabin 
came whirling by. He caught it, and hand over 
hand he wormed his way to the front of it. It 
quickly bore him down on Gloria. He caught 
her as he went racing by. He half shoved her 
upon the cabin top. Another hundred yards, 
and an eddy caught the roof. Ducharme drew 
a great breath into his lungs as he sensed that 
they were being whirled toward the shore. 

Far ahead, he could see the driftwood sweep¬ 
ing on. About fifty yards from shore it turned 
and dashed back into midstream. Ducharme 


I HAD TO COME’ 


139 


determined that when they reached the turning 
he would strike for the bank. He spoke to 
Gloria, telling her to be ready. She answered 
him bravely enough, although her face wore the 
whiteness of death. When Ducharme gave the 
word she jumped. He lunged through the 
water to her side. With his arm under her 
shoulder, he struck out for shore. Each suc¬ 
ceeding yard was gained more easily. In ten 
minutes Pierre carried her up a narrow sand- 
spit. She had fainted while they were still in 
the water. 

Ducharme held her lightly, gazing tenderly 
at her wax-like face. He, Ducharme, had saved 
her! Saved her to lose her! A wave of emotion 
engulfed him. Mastered by himself, he bent 
his head and kissed her lips. He groaned as he 
placed her upon the white sand and chafed her 
wrists. 

Gloria’s eyes fluttered open. Wearily she 
searched for Pierre’s and then held them 
unwinkingly. She did not know that he had 



140 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

kissed her; but Malvern, gazing down on them 
from the top of the great wall of gneiss 
through which the Chute had cut its way, had 
seen. 

Nothing could have revealed the truth more 
clearly to him. He bowed his head as he started 
down the trail which led to the water—not 
angry, but ashamed* 


CHAPTER XX 


a rogue’s progress 

After a day in bed Gloria seemed none the 
worse for her experience save that her eyes 
still wore a look of tiredness. Malvern had 
been very attentive; so much so that Anne an¬ 
nounced that she was leaving on Saturday. Jim 
promptly sensed the reason for her leaving be¬ 
fore the others went. He met her that after¬ 
noon by appointment in the little rustic summer¬ 
house perched high upon the side of the hill in 
back of the lodge. 

“Why are you running off, Anne?” he asked 
bluntly, making no attempt to hide his perturba¬ 
tion. 

Anne chose to be haughty. 

“Why—I’ve already stayed longer than I 
intended,” she said lightly. 


142 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

“But we had agreed that all of us should 
go together.” 

“It was only a tentative arrangement. Gloria 
and you will undoubtedly stay on for a while, 
now.” 

“So that’s it, eh?” Malvern exclaimed. 

“What?” 

“Gloria!” 

Anne laughed mirthlessly. “Don’t be ab¬ 
surd,” she said. 

“I’m not being absurd. Ever since I brought 
Gloria back to the lodge, you have acted 
strangely. I saw you change immediately.” 

“I marked a change in you, too, Jim.” 

“So? You think I change so easily, eh? 
Well, you have seen me playing a part.” 

Anne’s laugh thoroughly exasperated Mal¬ 
vern. 

“You have been very tender in your role, 
Jim,” she said. 

An angry red came into Malvern’s cheeks. 
“Lord, Anne,” he exclaimed, “we are not get- 


A ROGUE’S PROGRESS 


143 


ting anywhere.” He got up and caught her 
hand. "You know I love you. I’m going to 
marry you, and nothing will stop me. Are you 
going to fail me just when I’ve found the way 
out?” 

Anne got up and walked to the railing where 
she stood looking down at the distant river, 
white in the westering sun. 

"I haven’t said I would marry you, Jim,” she 
murmured without looking at him. "I—I may 
not marry at all.” 

"That’s temper, Anne,” Malvern replied 
brutally. "John has confided in me; I know the 
condition of the Cabot finances.” 

"You would know,” Anne flung at him over 
her shoulder. She turned to face him then, and 
exclaimed sharply: "Perhaps that will explain 
to you why I can’t afford to have my name 
dragged through a divorce scandal.” 

"Your name will not enter into it,” declared 
Malvern. "There’ll be no scandal, either.” 

"No? From what Eve heard your past will 


144 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

not stand the searching rays of front page 
publicity.” 

Malvern took the thrust with a smile. 

“Pm glad that you recognize it as a ‘past’ 
and not as con—” 

“That doesn’t interest me, Jim,” Anne inter¬ 
rupted. “I’ve come to expect infidelity of men. 
But all this talk is idle; Gloria still believes that 
she is in love with you. If she had any thought 
of divorcing you, she would have given you 
some indication of it before this.” 

“What she does is beside the point,” Mal¬ 
vern declared flatly. “When the time comes, I 
will get the divorce.” 

“You?” Anne laughed skeptically. “Again 
I say you are absurd, Jim Malvern. Gloria’s 
been more than square with you.” 

“She’s in love with Ducharme. ... That 
surprises you, eh?” 

“What?” It was incredible. 

“Yes, and he is in love with her,” Malvern 
went on. “I saw him as he carried her to the 


A ROGUE’S PROGRESS 


145 

shore day before yesterday. He kissed her as 
he stood there with her in his arms. Why, you 
don’t think he would have gambled his life on a 
thousand-to-one shot like that just to save my 
wife, do you?” 

“What makes you think Gloria is interested 
in him?” 

“Oh, maybe she doesn’t realize that she is— 
not yet. But it will come. There’s color to 
Ducharme.” 

“But he will drop out of her life after next 
week.” 

“He will not!” exclaimed Malvern. Anne 
gazed shrewdly at him. 

“What are you going to do?” she demanded, 
her eyes searching his. 

“I’m going to encourage him. When we go 
south, Ducharme goes along!” 

“Jim!” 

“Perhaps you understand now. I put it up 
to Gloria. She was against asking him at first, 
but when I suggested taking him down for the 


146 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

winter as a sort of reward for what he did, she 
agreed to it.” 

“Has she asked him yet?” 

Malvern nodded. 

“He refused at the time; but he has agreed 
to go.” 

Under other circumstances Anne might have 
shown some scruple against being a party to 
this base plotting, but her hatred of Ducharme 
blinded her. She was even conscious of a feel¬ 
ing of exhilaration as she foresaw herself amply 
revenged for the ignominy she had suffered at 
the Frenchman’s hands. When Malvern put 
his arm around her and kissed her she did not 
object. 

“Be patient,” he whispered. “We will not 
have to wait long, Anne. Say that you will 
stay on here until all of us go. The woods will 
be turning soon. Bois Blanc is at its best then. 
I want to get in a little shooting before I run 
back to New York. But there is a more impor¬ 
tant reason than that keeping me: I want Du- 


A ROGUE’S PROGRESS 147 

charme to have his chance. What do you say, 
Anne—will you stay?” 

The trumps were in Anne’s hand again and 
she knew it. It delighted her to be non-com¬ 
mittal; but Malvern knew her well enough to 
understand that she would stay.; 


CHAPTER XXI 


BITTER FRUIT 

Malvern was at some pains to be as affable as 
he could in the days which followed. The 
nights were cooler now and the sharp, bracing 
mornings a keen delight. Gloria admitted to 
herself that she was happier than she had been 
since coming north. Anne, however, watched 
Malvern with a coldly speculative eye. 

The Warrens were frankly “fed up” with 
the north, and if business interests had not dic¬ 
tated their conduct for them they would have 
left before September was half over. As for 
Brom, he was boisterously happy. The north 
suited him perfectly and with Ducharme he 
often roamed abroad. 

Malvern began at an early date to make 
preparations for the grouse shooting. He had 
a small lodge on the uplands about twenty-five 

148 


BITTER FRUIT 


149 


miles east of Bois Blanc which he used only at 
this season. It was his intention to have Gloria 
and the others go with him for a week. The 
Warrens never quite said they would go, and 
when it came time to start, they backed out 
with several excuses. 

Gloria had been interested at first, but Anne’s 
studied references to Pierre as a “guide” and 
servant had led her to give up any thought of 
going. 

Anne’s slighting remarks had not been 
voiced in Ducharme’s presence, it seems almost 
needless to add. Brom had taken her to task 
for them, for from Antoine he had heard some¬ 
thing of the truth concerning the trip she had 
taken with Pierre. Naturally Anne refused to 
admit that there was anything vindictive in 
her manner. 

Malvern had been genuinely interested in 
having Brom along, and when he suddenly de¬ 
clared that he preferred to stay at Bois Blanc, 
Jim had been very much piqued. Determined 


150 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

now that he should not be done out of his grouse 
shooting, he announced that he and Anne would 
go if they had to go alone. 

There was no dissenting voice to this, so 
accordingly Jim and Anne, with Pierre and 
Amiel, set out for the eastern edge of Mal¬ 
vern’s preserve. 

Anne realized that she had overplayed her 
hand, for it had been her intention to so shame 
Ducharme by snubbing him that he would have 
more than paid for what he had done to her. 
To succeed in this she had to have an audience, 
but denied one, she could not forego putting 
him in his place (as she saw it) at every oppor¬ 
tunity. 

Ducharme had surmised her intent before 
they left and he met her sallies with a smile. 
Of course nothing else could have so infuriated 
her or tempted her to further indignities and 
Pierre realized as much. 

Malvern could hardly have been blind to this 
pass at arms, but in his concern over the shoot- 


BITTER FRUIT 


151 

ing he failed to comment on the matter. He 
had several very fine dogs. Early the following 
morning Ducharme and he were afield. The 
grouse were fairly plentiful. Eastern Canada 
seldom enjoys a finer day than the one which 
smiled on them. The fields had turned brown 
and already the trees were bedecking them¬ 
selves in yellow and red for their whirling dance 
with death. 

A haze as of October hung in the air. Pun¬ 
gent earthy smells reached the nostrils. Mal¬ 
vern lost himself in the pleasure of the day. 
For the first time that year Ducharme and he 
approached their old footing. 

It may have been fancy on Pierre’s part, but 
he could not help feeling that Malvern returned 
to the lodge reluctantly. 

Anne met them a short distance from the 
cabin. Amiel had accompanied Jim and Du¬ 
charme, so she had been left to her own com¬ 
pany for the day and she had evidently been 
impatiently awaiting their return for some time. 


152 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Malvern was in high spirits and did his best 
to placate her for their late return. 

‘Til go along to-morrow,” Anne announced; 
“Ducharme can teach me how to shoot.” 

‘Til be delighted to have you,” Jim answered. 
“Pm sure Pierre will not mind.” 

“Mind?” Ducharme queried, rather sur¬ 
prised at Malvern’s condescension. “Why, I’ll 
be quite willing to do all I can. The dogs will 
get down to work in earnest in the morning. 
Have you ever shot over dogs?” 

“I’ve never shot over anything,” Anne re¬ 
torted sharply. 

“You’ll find it something of a trick,” Mal¬ 
vern cut in. “For God’s sake, Anne, don’t shoot 
one of my dogs; they stand me a pretty figure.” 

“You are very anxious to have me go along, 
aren’t you?” she asked sarcastically. 

It was an embarrassing moment all around. 

“Of course I want you to come,” Malvern 
asserted, refusing to lose patience for once. 
“You’ll be ready by daybreak?” 


BITTER FRUIT 


153 

“Daybreak? That sounds dreadfully early 
to me. Certainly it isn’t necessary to leave as 
early as that.” 

“But it is,” expostulated Malvern. “Don’t 
be a killjoy, Anne. You’ll get a thrill out of it. 
Cheer up now. Amiel will have supper ready in 
no time.” 

Pierre excused himself and left Malvern to 
placate her. Just why Anne should have felt 
that Ducharme was responsible for Malvern’s 
insistence it is impossible to say, but at supper 
and during the evening she let him see with 
what dislike she regarded him. 

Malvern was so thoroughly tired that he soon 
went to bed. Pierre and Amiel found several 
things to do, so Anne retired much against her 
wish. As Pierre left her he could not help 
wondering what Malvern found attractive 
about her. For the first time he became care¬ 
less of whether or not she realized in what dis¬ 
dain he held her. 

Anne caught his look, and with flashing eyes 


iS4 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

she turned away resolved to be revenged. 
Pierre sensed the threat, and in the hour that 
Amiel and he sat outside it was never far from 
his mind. 

The lodge was so arranged that the bed¬ 
rooms gave out upon the veranda which ran 
along the front of the building, excepting one 
for the cook which was in the rear next to the 
kitchen. Anne had been given one of the cor¬ 
ner rooms, and Malvern occupied the other. 
Ducharme’s room was between the two. Amiel 
was visibly surprised when Pierre told him they 
would exchange rooms for the night. 

“The little room off the kitchen is hot,” Amiel 
protested. 

“I shall not mind it,” Pierre replied. “We 
will be the first awake in the morning. No one 
need know about this. This is just a whim of 
mine, Amiel.” 

Amiel was not so easily fooled, but it was not 
for him to question Ducharme. He would have 
as willingly stood up for the night had Pierre 


BITTER FRUIT 


155 

asked him to. Indeed, to tell the truth, sus¬ 
picions that were as yet vague in Ducharme’s 
mind had crystalized in Amiehs. Pierre be¬ 
lieved Anne capable of going to any length to 
compromise him, but he was far from suspect¬ 
ing that she was even then deliberately planning 
to undo him and make his further retention by 
the Malverns impossible, unless Gloria plead 
his cause, thereby lending color to the very 
argument Malvern hoped to use against both 
of them. 

Man of the open though he was, Pierre found 
himself quite as ready for sleep as Malvern had 
when he finally reached his bed. Hours later 
—midnight at least—a wild, despairing cry for 
help brought him to his feet. He recognized 
almost instantly that it was Anne who was 
calling. 

“Jim! Jim!” she cried, “make him stop!” 

The almost forgotten Indian strain in Du- 
charme blazed in his eyes as he listened to 
Anne's well-simulated cry. He could imagine 


156 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

what had happened. He knew the mortifica¬ 
tion that would be hers before this little game 
had been played out would be more than a 
woman should be asked to bear, but he refused 
to lift a finger to save her. 

Malvern called out excitedly a second later. 
A door flung back angrily and the rush of bare 
feet along the veranda told Pierre that the 
climax to this farce must come soon. It pro¬ 
claimed as much to Anne, and she was quite 
ready for it, never questioning the success of 
her mean intrigue. 

She had waited until she was sure that every 
one but herself was sound asleep before stir¬ 
ring from her own room. The doors—thin 
affairs that the average man could break down 
—were never locked. She tiptoed to the door 
of the room next her own and listened. The 
sound of deep breathing reached her. She 
listened again to be sure. 

Standing there in the moonlight she ripped 
and tore her thin nightgown and dishevelled her 


BITTER FRUIT 157 

hair. No further preparation was necessary. 
Slipping into Ducharme’s room she fastened the 
sliding bolt on the door and shrieked. And 
now Malvern was outside demanding to know 
what had happened. 

“Get me out of here, Jim;” she screamed. 
“Break down the door, it's locked!” 

“My God how did you get in there?” Mal¬ 
vern shouted. 

Anne did not answer him, but to an imag¬ 
inary Pierre she cried: 

“Let me go! Oh, let me go!” 

Malvern did not wait. He put his shoulder 
to the door and snapped the bolt. Anne stag¬ 
gered out into his arms. 

“Jim,” she sobbed, “this is terrible, ter¬ 
rible—” 

“But what happened? How do you come to 
be in Ducharme’s room?” 

“He carried me in there,” she lied, the tears 
running down her cheeks. “The beast-” 

Malvern was properly indignant. 



158 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

“Go back to your room,” he said to her, ‘Til 
settle this with him.” 

Anne made no move to obey. She knew it re¬ 
quired her presence to make her charge con¬ 
vincing. Malvern had jammed the switch on 
his pocket flashlight in his excitement, but he got 
it to working again and stepped inside. A gasp 
of astonishment was wrung from him as he be¬ 
held Amiel, still asleep, or feigning to be, in 
Ducharme’s bed. He shook the man roughly 
and hurled almost incoherent questions at him. 

“Pierre ask me to sleep here to-night,” Amiel 
protested. “He is in my room.” 

“You’ve been in here all night?” 

“Yes, I have been here all the time.” Amiel’s 
face was very sober, and it was not by habit 
a sober countenance.; 

“You—bolted the door before you went 
to bed?” Malvern asked with growing cau¬ 
tion. 

“No, I never bolt the door.. Why should I 
lock the door ?” 


BITTER FRUIT 


159 

“All right, it doesn’t matter,” said Jim. “Go 
back to sleep.” He went out and closed the 
door behind him. Anne was waiting, her bosom 
heaving with genuine emotion now. 

“So Ducharme carried you in there, eh?” 
Malvern queried coldly. 

“I—I must have been walking in my sleep,” 
Anne said between sobs. “I—I don’t know 
how else to explain—” 

“Evidently Ducharme knew you’d have an 
attack like this to-night. Very fortunate for 
him, I should say.” 

“Oh, please, Jim, don’t take that tone with 
me,” Anne begged. She was an appealing fig¬ 
ure, silhouetted against the moon, her milk- 
white flesh as smooth as marble. She put her 
arms around Malvern’s neck and raised her lips 
to him. It was the age-old trick of the sorceress, 
but it was potent as usual. Malvern began to 
ofifer advice. “Forget Ducharme,” he said; “he 
is necessary to both of us. If you keep this up 
he’ll walk right out of the trap. I’ll not mention 


i6o PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


this to him in the morning, and you had better 
not, either.” 

“How I hate him,” Anne whispered. “Fll do 
anything to hurt him.” 

“Even to marrying me?” 

“Yes, Ill even promise that.” 


CHAPTER XXII 


TEMPTATION 

Malvern and Pierre were ready to leave the 
lodge a full hour before the sun came up the 
next morning. Anne had slept but an hour or 
two, so it was a very sleepy response that Mal¬ 
vern got when he called her. 

“We’ll wait a few minutes if you really want 
to go along,” he told her. “Amiel is getting 
breakfast. Do you think you want to try it?” 

“Let me sleep another hour, Jim,” she begged. 
“Pll surely be ready then.” 

Malvern’s answer was non-committal. He 
and Ducharme ate their breakfast almost in 
silence. When they had finished he said to 
Pierre: 

“I’m going along now with Amiel. You’ll 
know where to find us. We’ll take the dogs, 

161 


i62 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


and when Miss Cabot is ready the two of you 
can follow. You don’t mind?” 

Pierre smiled dryly. “It is agreeable to me,” 
said he, “if you think Miss Cabot will not 
object.” 

“I guess that’ll be all right. We are going to 
be here only a day or two; I don’t want to be 
cheated out of the shooting.” 

Anne heard them leave. She came to her 
door and on seeing Pierre sitting upon the 
veranda she called to him. 

“They are not going to wait?” 

“I’m to wait for you,” he answered. “You 
can sleep as long as you care to. We can find* 
them later on.” 

“Mr. Malvern suggested that?” 

“Why, of course, I—” 

Anne did not wait for him to finish but closed 
the door, her eyes flashing fire. Angry as she 
was, she was soon fast asleep again and noon 
had come before she reappeared. 

Ducharme was eating a bite as she entered 


TEMPTATION 163 

the combination living and dining-room. He 
got up and bowed. 

“I’ll get you something to eat, if you care to 
have me/’ said he, “and we can get along.” 

“Oh, Eve changed my mind,” Anne replied. 
“I could eat something, if you’d be so kind.” 

Her face bore no trace of the restless night 
she had put in. She actually gave Ducharme 
an ingratiating smile as he placed the food be¬ 
fore her. 

The wooden expression on Ducharme’s face 
did not change. 

“You are quite sure you won’t go,” he in¬ 
quired. 

“Quite,” Anne answered briefly. 

Pierre went out without answering. When 
Anne had finished eating she came upon the 
veranda to catch sight of him a mile away from 
the lodge walking toward the hills to the east. 

It grew uncomfortably warm during the aft¬ 
ernoon. Flics buzzed about the hammock 
swung on the veranda. The book which Anne 


164 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

had picked up failed to hold her, and bored with 
herself she finally got up and wandered off into 
the woods. Th^ere was a small lake several 
miles east of the lodge deep in a clump of spruce. 
It was a retreat that a hermit might have envied. 
Anne had been there before and it drew her 
again this afternoon. 

Deep, velvety moss covered the ground at its 
edge. Thankful for shade and unbroken quiet 
of the place she threw herself down and let her 
thoughts wander where they would. 

For the first time in the weeks she had been 
north she actually found herself alone. She 
had laughed at the others when they had 
admitted the spell the great woods had cast 
over them, but in a measure it touched her 
now. Stirred by a sudden impulse she un¬ 
dressed and stepped into the cold, crystal-clear 
water. 

A red-breasted woodpecker stopped his tap¬ 
ping to stare at her. And well he might, for 
she was ravishingly beautiful as she swam 


TEMPTATION 


165 

about the tiny lake, her bobbed hair a deep 
black against the blueness of the water. She 
stopped and blew him a kiss from her saucy 
lips. 

Minutes later as she was wading ashore the 
afternoon sun peeked through an opening in 
the dense foliage. Anne caught her full-length 
reflection in the water. She stopped and sur¬ 
veyed herself as critically as a painter does his 
canvas. 

She realized her beauty. To her it spelled 
power—unfailing power—the force by which 
she had always brought men to her feet, ap¬ 
pealing to the beast in them and holding them at 
bay as it pleased her to do. 

She ran her long white hands through her 
hair and let the wind dry it. With something 
of regret she slipped into her filmy underthings. 

There it was that Ducharme lost in thought 
stumbled upon her. He was not aware of her 
until he was within a few feet of the spot where 
she stood. His surprise was complete. Dislike 


166 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


her though he did, for a fleeting second her 
beauty captured and held him. With eyes half 
closed he turned away. Anne called him when 
she had finished dressing. 

“Come here, Pierre,” she said entreatingly, 
“and sit down beside me; I want to talk to you.” 
He did not answer at once. 

“I didn’t know you were here,” said he em- 
barrassedly. 

“Of course you didn’t, or wild horses could 
not have dragged you to the spot. Tell me, do 
you really hate me so much?” 

“I would hardly express it that way,” Du- 
charme murmured lamely. 

Anne’s tone had lost its imperiousness. In¬ 
deed her present mood was such that Ducharme 
appealed to her strongly, and in a way she 
would have believed impossible heretofore. 
Once she had attempted to play with him, but 
now, if she could have managed it, she would 
have liked nothing better than to have brought 
him to her feet and held him there charmed. 


TEMPTATION 167 

She exerted all the coquetry she had at her 
command, and it piqued her not to find an 
answering gleam in his moody eyes. 

“You are quite aware of what happened last 
night, aren't you?” she asked with growing 
petulance. 

“I am quite willing to forget,” he answered. 

“You can afford to say that. You must realize 
how cheap I made myself. Why don't you tell 
me I deserved what I got ?” 

Pierre did not answer. Anne saw him pause 
and she quickly added: 

“Don't tell me you are sorry for me. I 
couldn't stand that.” 

“I am not sorry for you,” Ducharme mur¬ 
mured. “I wonder only at your reasons.” 

“And I wonder what made you suspect me. 
You are deep, aren't you? It makes me smile 
to think of the others taking you for an un¬ 
sophisticated countryman. You're not that, 
Pierre. Anyhow, I'm glad you tricked me. It 
wouldn't have been very pleasant for you, other- 


168 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


wise. Pm going to admit that Eve treated you 
abominably. Promise me that you’ll forget. 
Let us make a fresh start, eh?” 

She reached out and brushed the hair back 
from his forehead. She saw Ducharme’s body 
grow tense. It brought a sigh from her. 

“I had to come here in the woods to be 
humbled,” she whispered. “I want you to ap¬ 
preciate that fact. I’ve been wearied with men; 
they’ve pursued me. I’ve had but to raise my 
eyes to have them come running. I guess that 
is why I resented you—you showed me too 
plainly how little I meant to you. . . . Am I 
really so unattractive in your eyes; isn’t there 
anything about me that appeals to you?” 

Ducharme looked up for the first time in 
minutes. Her lips were an invitation. They 
were his if he cared to take them. 

“You—call this a fresh start?” he asked 
unevenly. He shook his head as if finding his 
own answer. “I am still the plaything,” he 
added. 


TEMPTATION 


169 

“No, Pierre, don't say that!” Anne ex¬ 
claimed. “There's something wild—untamed 
—in you that grips me.” 

“My Indian blood, perhaps,” Ducharme 
laughed mirthlessly. 

“You are cruel,” Anne murmured, her lips 
trembling. “Tell me, Pierre—you are not in 
love with another?” 

Ducharme gazed at her sharply, his face 
whitening, trying to fathom her purpose. 

“You almost answer my question without 
speaking,” Anne exclaimed. “I suspected this 
long ago. Don't be a fool, Pierre; Gloria Mal¬ 
vern can never mean anything to you.” 

“No!” he exclaimed, catching her wrists 
roughly. “You are putting words into my 
mouth. I have only the deepest respect for 
Mrs. Malvern. She has been very gracious 
to me. Whatever you do, don’t repeat this 
madness to another., I could never forgive 
you.” 

He had not realized how deep his fingers 


170 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

were cutting into her wrists until tears of pain 
welling up in Anne’s eyes arrested him. He 
released her hands hurriedly. 

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he muttered gruffly. 

“Oh, I want you to hurt me/’ she cried pas¬ 
sionately. “Make me obey you, Pierre! Why 
do you turn away ? Look at me! Look at me, 
you wonderful—” 

She stopped abruptly as something moved in 
the underbrush. Ducharme had heard the sound 
too. He expected nothing else than that Mal¬ 
vern would confront them the next second. It 
was not Jim, however, but one of his dogs. He 
and Amiel could not be far off. 

Desperate, Anne caught Ducharme’s hand 
and crushed it against her lips. 

“Promise me you will be here to-morrow,” 
she entreated. Say that you will meet me 
here!” 

Ducharme just stared at her. Anne dropped 
his hand at last. His eyes held her as though 
she were hypnotized. The sternness of Pierre’s 


TEMPTATION 


171 

face partly concealed his disgust, but it could 
not hide his anger. 

“Do not insist,” he said grimly, “for I may 
come, and if I do it shall be for but one purpose. 
The price I shall ask, and insist upon getting, 
will not be one you will care to pay.” 

This was frank enough for Anne. For the 
moment she knew not how to answer, and the 
sigh which escaped her as Malvern came 
through the brush was almost one of relief. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


OUT OF REACH 

Malvern was not at all pleased at finding them 
together in such a romantic spot, nor did 
Anne’s evident nervousness escape him. Won¬ 
der ingly he glanced from her to Ducharme, 
trying to read from their attitude some hint of 
what had passed between them. Wisely 
enough he said nothing. 

Anne’s flaming passion had so carried her 
away that had Malvern chided her at the mo¬ 
ment she most certainly would have been 
through with him forever, and this in spite of 
the fact that she hardly meant what she had 
said to Ducharme. Rather, she did not believe 
that she meant it (and she undoubtedly did 
not), but her madness had put a spell upon her, 
and for the time being she was the slave of her 
self-awakened appetite. 

172 


OUT OF REACH 


173 


“I slept until noon, Jim,” she said by way 
of explanation. “I knew it was foolish to start 
out then. Did you have a good day?” 

“No kick at all. The dogs worked to perfec¬ 
tion. I got some nice birds. By the way, 
Pierre, do you mind cooking them? You can 
do something to a grouse that’s beyond Amiel.” 

“I’ve heard about your cooking,” Anne ex¬ 
claimed. “Don’t refuse; I’m ravenous.” 

“You flatter me, I’m afraid; it is nothing. If 
Amiel has eggs enough, I’ll cook the grouse. 
Shall we get along?” 

They met Amiel a short distance away. Du- 
charme chose to walk with him. Their pace 
gradually took them away from Anne and Mal¬ 
vern. Amiel tried unsuccessfully to engage 
Pierre in conversation. He shot a furtive 
glance at the big man but Ducharme’s face was 
a mask. Only the tightness of his mouth gave 
any hint of the turmoil that seethed within him. 
He was not oblivious to the physical lure of 
Anne. Few men could have been, and yet, he 


174 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

berated himself for a weakling for having 
allowed her to arouse him to his present pitch. 

Well enough he knew that the cup of pleasure 
which she offered would be dashed from his 
lips did he but try to sip its contents. He recog¬ 
nized the gesture for what it was, and it made 
him hate her. He winced as he recalled what 
she had said about Gloria. What a world of 
difference there was between the two! 

He asked himself if her coupling his name 
with Gloria's could have been anything but a 
shot in the dark. Surely he had done nothing 
to warrant the suspicion. Or had he ? In spite 
of every precaution had he unwittingly revealed 
his regard for her who meant so much to him? 
A cold, numbling fear crept over him with the 
thought. He had hardly admitted even to him¬ 
self that Gloria Malvern had wrenched the 
heart from his body. How, then, could the 
others know? 

“Pierre,” Amiel muttered grimly as they 
reached the lodge, “these people will be gone 


OUT OF REACH 


175 

soon. Another two weeks and we will have 
the woods to ourselves/’ 

Amiel made the suggestion in all kindliness, 
but it sent a dart into Ducharme’s heart . . . 
another two weeks and they would be gone 
. . . how well he knew it. Either he must go 
with them as he had promised, or Gloria would 
pass out of his life. In his way, he knew it 
would be wiser to bow to fate and let her go, but 
that called for courage he did not possess. 

Amiel did not know that he had given his 
promise. Time enough to tell him when the day 
came. Moodily he set about preparing the 
grouse. 

Malvern had lingered behind with Anne. 
Conversation proved a rather difficult thing. 

“I hope you haven’t antagonized him further 
to-day,” he said at last. 

“What made you think I had?” Anne queried 
arrogantly. 

“He’s not himself. You know, Anne, you 
don’t begin to understand Ducharme. He’s not 


176 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

an ignorant backwoodsman. And he’s not gul¬ 
lible either. I got a word or two from Antoine 
about what happened at his cabin last month. 
It should have taught you a lesson.” 

“Well—perhaps it did.” 

“You wouldn’t have dared anything as far 
fetched as you did last night if you had. 
He knows you are trying to get even—that you 
are only playing with him.” 

“So?” Anne laughed ironically. “I wonder 
if I am,” she added musingly. 

Malvern looked at her in amazement. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Anne,” he exclaimed. 
“Take him away from these woods and he’ll be 
unromantic enough.” 

“You sound as if you might be jealous,” 
Anne replied. Her answer exasperated Mal¬ 
vern. 

“Jealous?” he echoed. “My God! Should I 
be jealous of my guide? Why—I half believe 
you were making love to him when I found you 
back at the lake.” 


OUT OF REACH 


177 


“Well—what if I were?” 

“You admit, eh?” 

“I don't deny it.” 

Malvern was so beside himself that he could 
not speak for the moment. 

“Listen, Anne,” he muttered finally, “there's 
a limit to my patience. I'll not be made ridicu¬ 
lous to Ducharme.” 

“We are what we are, Jim, I fancy neither of 
us fool him very much.” 

“You don't mean to tell me that you are in 
love with him ?” 

Anne shook her head. “No,” she murmured, 
almost regretfully, “I'm not; but I almost wish’ 
I were. I know I am not fooling him, and I 
am not fooling myself, either. I'm playing with 
fire; I know it. He burns into me at times.” 

“It's rotten of you to string him along like 
this,” Malvern declared bitterly. 

“I guess it only amuses him. He is head over 
heals in love with Gloria.” 


“What?” 


178 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

“Absolutely, Jim. He gave himself away 
completely this afternoon/’ 

For the moment Malvern seemed not to know 
whether to be pleased or hurt at this informa¬ 
tion. Anne caught his feeling. 

“That is exactly what you wanted, isn’t it?” 
she asked with devilish frankness. 

The taunt brought an answering shot from 
Malvern. 

“I wonder if that explains your interest in 
him,” said he. 

Anne could afford to smile now. 

“Perhaps it does,” she laughed. “He is quite 
insensible to me.” 

The admission afforded Malvern a degree of 
relief. 

“It doesn’t matter—not really, Anne. Why 
not keep your hands off? You’ll drive him 
away just when I am about to succeed.” 

“And but a second ago you dared to tell me 
how rottenly I was treating him. You amuse 
me, Jim.” 


OUT OF REACH 


179 

“Well, I don’t deny the rottenness of my 
scheme. At least, Anne, give me credit for 
that. And I’m doing it for you, too—for both 
of us. Don’t forget that, Anne.” 

“I guess you’ll see that I don’t,” Anne’s tone 
was less than vindictive but it caused Malvern 
to regard her shrewdly. He wondered if her 
words held more than idle talk. He put his 
arms around her and forced her to look up at 
him. 

“We are not going to quarrel, are we dear?” 
he murmured tensely. 

“Of course not. I tell you Ducharme is not 
interested in me.” 

“But if he were?” 

“Well,—but what’s the use? Still, I almost 
envy Gloria, Not that anything will come of 
it, she’s such an innocent. But I’m woman 
enough to want to have a man care for me the 
way he cares for her.” 

The words were barbed, and they sunk 
deeper into Malvern’s consciousness than Anne 


i8o PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

intended. Conversation died between them. 
The grouse proved up to Pierre's reputation, 
but it was a silent and altogether cheerless 
meal.. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


THE FLAMING FOREST 

Anne’s train of thought as she went off to sleep 
concerned Ducharme quite to the exclusion of 
Malvern. In a dream-world she saw herself 
foregoing any thought of Malvern’s wealth and 
making a supreme effort to win Pierre’s love. 
Even in dreams, however, she recognized the 
element of sacrifice entailed. But she could not 
be blamed too much for that—life had been 
shaping her course quite relentlessly. Certain 
material things which were luxuries to many 
were to her grim necessities. She had to have 
money. . . . How else could one do as they 
pleased ? 

Dry, pungent wood-smoke drifting , in 
through the open window awakened her an 
hour after midnight. She sat up in bed, sniffing 

181 


182 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


the air enquiringly. Her first thought was that 
the lodge was afire. She dismissed the fear 
almost immediately, quickly realizing that what¬ 
ever was burning was a long distance away, for 
a thin haze floated in the moonlight filtering 
down through the trees. Reassured, she went 
back to sleep, but not for long. 

When she sat up the second time she listened 
anxiously. The smoke was heavier, and from 
the veranda came the low droning of voices. 
Hastily throwing on a light wrap she went to 
the door and peeked out. Ducharme and Amiel 
sat upon the steps staring off across the woods 
and meadows. Their tone was serious. 

Anne caught their anxiety. 

“Is anything wrong ?” she asked, coming up 
to them. Amiel and Pierre started to get up 
but she told them not to bother. 

“It’s too early to say whether it’s serious or 
not, but there is a lot of smoke pouring down 
from the northeast.” 

“It couldn't put us in danger here, could it?” 


THE FLAMING FOREST 183 

Amiel laughed. Ducharme stopped him with 
a glance. 

“The woods are very dry,” he said. “We 
hardly ever get by without a fire or two at this 
time of the year. WeVe been sitting here for 
an hour waiting for the fire to top that ridge., 
When it does we will be able to see how serious 
the danger is.” 

“There is danger, then?” Anne’s voice was 
steady enough but her eyes revealed her un¬ 
easiness. 

“There may not be,” Pierre replied honestly. 
“If the wind does not come up the blaze may 
peter out; they often do. There is so much 
open country east of us that I wouldn’t give this 
smoke a second thought if it were from that 
quarter. To the northeast there is pretty solid 
second-growth timber.” 

“Have you said anything to Mr. Malvern?” 

“Not yet. Time enough to wake him when 
we know what is up. There isn’t anything we 
can do at present. If the blaze is serious, we 


184 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

will have to run. We can backfire around the 
lodge and save it, perhaps, but we’d not be able 
to stay here; the smoke would make short work 
of us.” 

Amiel had left them alone as they talked. 
Anne sat down beside Pierre and cupped her 
hands about her chin. Ducharme glanced at 
her rather searchingly. 

“I hope I haven’t alarmed you,” he said a 
moment later, and his tone was kindlier than 
Anne had expected. 

“Vm not afraid,” she answered, continuing 
to stare at the distant ridge which screened the 
oncoming fire, “I know you’ll get us out no 
matter what happens.” 

Pierre smiled to himself. 

“You take a great deal for granted, don’t 
you?” 

“I don’t know that I do. You have a way of 
compelling confidence in your ability to do the 
right thing at the right time. I haven’t for¬ 
gotten how you fished Gloria out of the 


THE FLAMING FOREST 185 

river. Really, you have been horribly efficient, 
Pierre.” 

Ducharme made no attempt to reply, and it 
was only after several minutes had passed that 
Anne added: 

“You’ll be quite a hero if you show up at 
Bois Blanc with the rest of us in tow, providing 
this fire proves really serious.” 

It was an unfortunate remark, and Anne 
realized it almost as soon as the words had left 
her tongue. She saw Pierre draw away. She 
caught him quickly. 

“I didn’t mean it that way,” she said implor¬ 
ingly. “Don’t be offended with me, Pierre. I 
know you don’t go in for heroics. No matter 
what I’ve thought of you, I’ve never accused 
you of that. But you did save Gloria when 
there didn’t seem to be a chance for it, and if 
you have to lug us out of the woods now it will 
just about confirm your position as a superman 
with the rest of us.” 

This explanation seemed to mollify Du- 


186 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


charme. He offered Anne a cigarette and they 
sat there smoking without a word passing be¬ 
tween them for the better part of an hour. 

The portentous red glow creeping toward 
them from the northeast advanced. All at once, 
or so it seemed, a thin, wavering red line 
topped the distant ridge for miles. Here and 
there the flames leaped high and then subsided 
to advance down the valley like a well-trained 
line of shock troops going into battle. 

“I—I guess we’d better call Mr. Malvern,” 
said Pierre. 

Anne turned to stare at Ducharme. “You 
mean it’s serious, then?” she queried with sud-’ 
den apprehension. 

“It looks bad. If the wind comes up, and it 
undoubtedly will, we’re in for it. That fire 
has been burning for days. Amiel caught the 
first sign of it early this morning.” 

“Why didn’t you say something about it?” 

“You were hardly in the mood to listen to 
me this morning,” Pierre answered patiently. 
“If I had told you, you would have been 


THE FLAMING FOREST 187 

worried, and the hunting would have been 
ruined for the day. As it is, we'll not have to 
leave until daylight, perhaps not then." 

“Well, sit here. I'm immensely thrilled. 
I wish Amiel and Malvern were back at Bois 
Blanc; I'd like to face this alone with you." 

Danger signals glowed in Ducharme's eyes. 
Anne recognized them. 

“No, Pierre," she murmured, “don't draw 
away; I'm not going to make love to you: I 
realize the hopelessness of that." 

It was almost the truth, but the desire to 
cover his warm, red lips with mad, burning 
kisses tortured her. Yearning crept into her 
eyes. Ducharme read their message as clearly 
as though she had put her thought into words. 
He looked away, and it was not with the con¬ 
fusion of youth but with a feeling of fear. Im¬ 
pulses that he had throttled struggled for mas¬ 
tery in him. 

And Anne, wise as only a woman of her kind 
can be wise in the ways of men, sensed the 
struggle going on within him. Insidiously she 


188 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


edged closer and closer to him until her soft, 
yielding flesh touched him through the thin 
folds of her robe. She felt a tremor pass over 
Ducharme. His throat was dry. He wanted 
to get up, to get away, to leave this woman for¬ 
ever, but invisible chains bound him to the spot. 
And there they sat, speaking not but saying 
everything, as man and woman have ever done. 

Ducharme broke the spell at last, and his 
words were quite meaningless to Anne at 
first. 

“You know that I’m going to New York,” 
he muttered. “You’ve been told, I suppose?” 

“I heard that you had been invited,” Anne 
answered, wondering where the question might 
lead. 

“Well, I am going to go,” Pierre went on. 
“I was just thinking how ridiculous this mo¬ 
ment will seem to both of us when we look back 
at it from the social stronghold.” His voice 
was bitter. “I hope we’ll find it ridiculous for 
the same reason.” 


THE FLAMING FOREST 189 

Anne did not smile. “I hope so too,” she 
murmured, her voice low and charged. “Ridic¬ 
ulous is hardly the word, though, Pierre. 
Closed incidents are sometimes neither amusing 
nor ridiculous. 

“You are honest, now,” Pierre mused: “this 
is, as you say, but an incident. But even that is 
more than I supposed it to be.” 

“And what did you suppose it to be?” 

“Playing—just a game at my expense.” 

“And you’ve changed your mind?” Anne’s 
voice was so low he barely heard. He nodded 
his head slowly in answer, communing with 
himself. 

“And your name for it now?” 

Ducharme hesitated. 

“Madness—of a sort,” he murmured then; 
“it’s an easy name for it. And that is why it 
will be ridiculous to you—you’ll wonder just 
how much you meant it, and how much I be¬ 
lieved you.” 

“You take for granted that it cannot last?” 


190 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

“No, no.” Ducharme's laugh made Anne 
shiver. “You progress from the future to the 
present, now,” he went on. “A guide—an 
Indian guide—that's how you will think of me, 
—a sort of superservant, perhaps.” 

For some inexplicable reason Anne wanted to 
cry. Tears over a lost cause,—it was an ap¬ 
pealing thought. 

“Why aren't you rich?” she whispered 
tremulously. 

“It would make no difference.” 

The truth of this was undeniable. It silenced 
her for a moment. She thought of Gloria, and 
hated her cordially. Her train of thought was 
reflected in the bitterness which hardened her 
mouth. 

“And yet, if it were not for another,” she 
murmured, “it might make a difference.” 

Ducharme understood her perfectly, but he 
said nothing. After a time, it was Anne who 
spoke. 

“Perhaps ridiculous will be the word for it,” 


THE FLAMING FOREST 191 

said she. “Tell me, when you think of me, what 
will it be?” 

“I—shall not think of you, mademoiselle.” 
Ducharme’s manner was matter-of-fact, even 
disarming. “Closed incidents are best for¬ 
gotten.” 

He got up and offered Anne an assisting 
hand. 

“Perhaps it would be well for you to catch an 
hour’s sleep if possible. We most certainly will 
be leaving by daylight.” 

“You are suddenly sure of it?” Anne 
answered. 

“I wondered if you had failed to hear the 
sounds that have been reaching us for half an 
hour. You evidently have. Moose and deer 
have been rushing past the lodge for thirty 
minutes. Take my word for it, when they 
move before a fire it’s time to go.” 

Anne was on her feet staring into the timber. 
Shadowy forms slipped by. Ducharme pointed 
out a lynx bounding along noiselessly. 


192 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

“Thank God, we’ve little to pack/’ Anne 
gasped. “I can be ready in ten minutes.” 

“Amiel and I will not be ready to leave as 
soon as that. The yv'md is coming up. Can’t 
you feel it? We’ll set the brush afire around 
the lodge. Mr. Malvern and you can pack. I’ll 
call him now. But don’t become alarmed. 
We’ve plenty of time.” 

He turned and left her. Anne could not help 
another look at the advancing line of fire, now 
galloping toward the lodge as rapidly as a man 
runs. She fancied she could hear its roar 
already, though it was still miles away. To be 
calm and unhurried in the face of such a menace 
was more than she could accomplish. 


CHAPTER XXV 


CHANCE 

The few minutes that it took Anne to dress 
and gather together the few things she had 
brought with her brought Malvern to her room, 
his face an unnatural white. 

“Don’t bother about packing up!” he ex¬ 
claimed excitedly, “we haven’t a minute to 
lose.” 

Anne looked at him in amazement. 

“Pierre tells me we Jiave plenty of time,” 
she cried. 

“He tells me the same thing, but he’s too sure 
of himself. You can hear the trees going down 
already. Wait until you have a look.” 

“I’ve been sitting outside for over an hour 
with him, watching the fire,” she answered. 

“You have?” Malvern’s surprise was piti- 
193 


i 9 4 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

ful« “No wonder you take it so easily. But I 
warn you, Anne, don’t take things so damn 
calmly. Ducharme wouldn’t let us see what he 
really thinks. He might have called me when 
he discovered the fire.” 

“I wouldn’t take him to task about it,” Anne 
said pointedly. “If we get out alive it will be 
because of him. It strikes me he is going to be 
quite an important person for the next few 
hours.” 

“He’ll do what I tell him to do,” Malvern 
declared angrily. 

“I wonder. I wouldn’t insist on it, Jim. 
Besides, I’m not quite ready to die here in the 
wilds of Quebec. I know the story would give 
some friends of ours a breakfast thrill, say day 
after to-morrow morning, but I refuse to 
oblige.” Anne’s tone suddenly changed from 
one of bantering to deadly seriousness. “I 
warn you, don’t be a fool. And don’t expect me 
to follow you; I know Ducharme will get us out 
if it can be done. I follow him.” 


CHANCE 


i95 


^Well, do you know he is not going to strike 
for the river? He says he will take us south 
and counter on the wind. Does that sound like 
sense to you ?” 

“I don’t know!” Anne was rapidly losing her 
temper. “I wouldn’t question you on the Street, 
and I’ll not question Ducharme in the woods. If 
he says go south, it’s enough for me.” 

Malvern cursed under his breath. “Why, he 
exclaimed, “he tells me Amiel spotted smoke 
early this morning, that he didn’t say anything 
to me because he didn’t want to spoil the shoot¬ 
ing. Good God! am I a child to be pampered 
like that ? This is my place, he is working for 
me! You make a hero out of him.” 

“Unfortunately, he doesn’t think so.” 
Pierre’s entrance stopped the argument 
abruptly, 

“We can go now, if you are ready,” he said 
evenly. “We have the brush burning all 
around us. The circle will close in a few 
minutes. Are you ready?” 


196 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Jim nodded. Anne answered for herself. 

“Amiel can carry my stuff/’ Malvern de¬ 
clared when Pierre signalled them to follow 
hirm 

“Pm sorry, but you’ll have to pack your own 
things,” he said flatly. “I’ll take Miss Cabot’s. 
The rest of us will have to shoulder the other 
bags.” 

Malvern glared at him. “Are you giving the 
orders, or am I?” he asked hotly. 

Pierre met his eyes squarely. 

“I regret that you should have to ask that 
question,” he said with chilling emphasis. “I 
took it for granted that at such a moment you 
would look to me—I felt that it was part of my 
responsibility. But since you question it, why, 
I am quite willing you should follow your own 
judgment. I must tell you, however, that this 
fire is a serious one. The wind is rising all 
the time. You will see before long that many 
little fires are starting,—pieces of burning bark 
as big as your hand are in the air. The deer 


CHANCE 


197 


are swift, but the fire will outstrip them before 
they reach the river. The timber is thick be¬ 
tween here and the Saguenay. To the south 
there are openings, some water and a fairly 
good trail. It is suicide to try for the river. 
But if you think safety lies that way—don’t let 
me stop you. I’ll go my way, and you go yours; 
but Miss Cabot should be permitted to say 
which one of us she will follow.” 

“What does Amiel say?” Malvern demanded 
sulkily. 

“He agrees with me absolutely; he’ll go with 
me.” 

“And so will I,” Anne announced, “and I’m 
sure you will too, Jim.” 

Malvern agreed with a poor show of grace, 
and not because, he was a coward who feared 
to risk the big woods by himself but because, 
for all his anger, he realized his own unfitness 
for the ordeal ahead. His pack weighed a full 
thirty-five pounds, guns included. No load for 
either Pierre or Amiel, but for him a heavy one. 


198 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

He pitched it high upon his back and adjusted 
the tumpline with Pierre’s assistance. 

A word to Anne, and they came out on the 
veranda. The back-firing had gained in volume 
and now a space not over seventy-five yards 
wide, and rapidly growing less, separated the 
two ends of the circle of fire closing in about 
them. Anne coughed violently. 

“The smoke will not be so heavy when we get 
beyond our own fire,” Pierre told her. “Arniel 
will lead the way. You follow him, Miss Cabot. 
Mr. Malvern will be in back of you. I’ll be 
last.” He gave the word, and they started. 

“Keep together,” Ducharme warned. The 
smoke was so thick that it was almost impos¬ 
sible to see ahead for over a few feet. Malvern 
stumbled once, but Pierre caught him before he 
fell. 

“We’ll be out of this in a few minutes,” said 
he. “Don’t hang back.” 

A shout from Amiel told Pierre that he had 
reached the comparative safety and comfort 


CHANCE 


199 

beyond the backfire. With eyes smarting and 
tears running down their cheeks Malvern and 
Ducharme soon joined the other two. They 
stopped for a moment that Anne might catch 
her breath. 

“Follow Amiel, now,” Pierre said to her. 
“If you should lose sight of him, call out. 
Don’t run; we’ve got to save our strength. It 
will be daylight in another hour. We can go 
faster then.” 

Strung out in Indian file, they moved on 
through the forest. Rabbits and other small 
animals brushed past them in the darkness. 
From afar the roaring of the flames reached 
them. The rising wind rustled through the 
leaves and turned them up as if preparing them 
for the fate so soon to be theirs. 

Perspiration broke on Pierre. The double 
pack he carried irritated him more by its bulk 
than weight. He was grateful when they 
reached the first opening. It was less than half 
a mile across, but it brought cooler air and a 


200 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


slight lifting of the smoke pall which licked 
the moisture from tongue and lips. 

Animals, insects, birds—each seemed to 
sense what impended, all save the treetoads; 
they droned their monotonous song as of old. 

Amiel had halted for Ducharme to join the 
others. Anne caught the glance the two ex¬ 
changed. It carried a question and an answer, 
and the answer was not encouraging. Pierre 
spoke to her the next moment. 

“Are you beginning to tire ?” 

“No, Pm all right/’ Anne answered, brush¬ 
ing her damp hair with her hands. “I’m 
terribly thirsty, though.” 

“We’ll have water in ten minutes. There are 
several springs just beyond. 

“The fire is gaining on us,” Malvern declared. 

“I expected it would. It will gain on us until 
we are out of danger. We are passing right 
across its path. The gamble I am taking is that 
we can reach burnt-over land before it catches 
up with us. I still believe our chance is good.” 


CHANCE 


201 


He gave the word and Amiel started on 
again, and the others followed. They were as¬ 
cending a rise of ground now, and when they 
reached the crest they were able for the first 
time to look back and see the full sweep of the 
fire. For miles the forest was ablaze. March¬ 
ing up hill and down it came on apace. 

Great sparks would fly skyward. Little fires 
would flame. In a matter of minutes they 
would grow and soon become a part of the wall 
of fire advancing so relentlessly. 

So thrilled was Anne at the spectacle that she 
quite forgot to be afraid. Ducharme forgave 
her a lot as he gazed at her. Only Malvern was 
untouched by the sight of the blazing world 
below them. His body ached already from the 
pack he carried. He was thirsty, his eyes 
smarted and the tumpline burned his forehead. 
One of the dogs brushed against him. Angrily 
he kicked the animal out of his way. 

“Where is the spring ?” he cried. “Don’t let 
us stand here, this pack is breaking my back.” 


202 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


At the bottom of the hill they found water. 
They dropped their packs and got down on 
hands and knees and wet their faces in the 
shallow pool. They were not the only ones 
afield looking for water. Even as they lay there 
a mink crawled toward them, its beady eyes re¬ 
flecting the fire-glow. The animal stopped a 
few feet away, surveying them critically and 
seeming to ponder whether to run or hold its 
ground. 

Ducharme knew that throughout the forest, 
wherever spring or rivulet trickled, the deni¬ 
zens of the woods were gathering, not only to 
drink, but to back into the water until only 
their nostrils showed. Even the cat tribe, 
sworn foe of water, would seek this means of 
escape. Some would live through, but most of 
them would die. To-morrow their blackened 
forms would give mute testimony of their 
losing fight. 

When he had drunk his fill, Malvern went 
through his pack and got out his guns. Pierre 


CHANCE 


203 

was watching him, understanding his intention. 

‘Tm going to save the guns and let the rest 
go,” Malvern announced, his voice a grumble. 

“Perhaps that’s best,” Pierre agreed. 

Anne had been studying the sky. The glow 
seemed to be fading out of the heavens. She 
called Ducharme’s attention to the fact. 

“No, it’s not that,” said he, “the fire is not 
going down; it’s breaking day. In another 
hour we’ll not see any glow at all, but the fire 
will be there. Unless the wind shifts at dawn, 
I expect the timber will go all the way to the 
river.” 

“Bois Blanc isn’t in any danger, eh?” asked 
Malvern. 

“I wouldn’t say that it was. Felix will know 
what to do.” 

“You think they know we are caught, then?” 
Anne asked. 

“Not a doubt of it.” 

“They may try to reach us,” Malvern ex¬ 
claimed hopefully. Pierre checked him. 


204 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

“They’ll know better than to attempt that,” 
said he. “Felix will depend on me to do the 
right thing, even as I depend on him. We’ll get 
along now. We can go faster, too, Amiel. 
When it gets light enough, we’ll run whenever 
the going is good enough.” 

Amiel got his pack in place and started off 
without a word. Anne hung back for a 
moment. 

“Tell me, Pierre, do you really think we’ve 
got a chance?” she asked earnestly, her eyes 
holding his. 

Ducharme started to answer, but checked 
himself, and then, instead of the optimistic 
reply he had intended, he said: 

“Just a chance—that’s all. If I had known 
how the wind would blow, we could have started 
earlier. As it is, we’ve got a chance—just a 
chance.” 

“And you’ll tell me when that chance goes ?” 

“If you wish it—I shall.” 


CHAPTER XXVI 


A RACE FOR LIFE 

Daylight came—yellow, smoke-laden* Hours 
passed. Only once more did they find water to 
appease their thirst and cool their bodies. Gum 
dripped from spruce and cedar. Malvern held 
up a fern, its leaves already withered from the 
hot blast which fanned it. That dull, roaring 
which had followed them since leaving the 
lodge gave way to distinct sounds. Time after 
time they heard the crashing of forest giants 
falling before the onslaught of the flames. 

Ducharme’s face was stern. He called the 
others to a halt in a clearing and bade them 
leave their packs. The ground fell away to the 
south of them. Pierre pointed to the fire slowly 
circling ahead of them. 

“The wind has trapped us,” he admitted as 

205 


206 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


he saw tree after tree leap into flames. “We 
can’t get out that way.” 

Amiel spoke to him in French. Anne fol¬ 
lowed their words, finding their French easily 
understood. Pierre turned to her, evidently 
unaware that she already knew what had been 
said. 

“Amiel suggests that we follow the Micmac. 
It is the best we can do. There isn’t much water 
in it here—we’ll cross it in the valley below. 
Later on it becomes quite a stream. The first- 
growth timber has been pretty well cut off along 
its course. If the fire closes in ahead of us we 
can launch a log and run the river. There are 
rapids—one a bad one—we may not get past it 
alive; but it is a chance. There is no chance 
left any other way. . . .. Tell me what you 
want to do.” 

“Whatever you want to do,” Anne gasped. 
Her face was streaked with grime, her clothes 
were torn, and she was, altogether, far from 
the Anne Cabot of yesterday. 


A RACE FOR LIFE 


207 

Pierre glanced at Malvern for his answer. 
Malvern nodded grimly. 

“Run for it, then,” Pierre ordered. 

It took them ten or twelve minutes to reach 
the creek. It looked harmless enough, gurgling 
over its white rocks. In many places there was 
nothing to do but wade through the water. 
That made their progress slow, but whenever it 
was possible to run Ducharme urged them on. 

An hour of this proved to him that they were 
too late; half a mile ahead of them the circle 
of flames had closed. 

Other creeks had joined the Micmac. It 
tumbled along with rising song now, its cur¬ 
rent so strong that Anne was almost swept off 
her feet. 

“My God!” Malvern groaned. “We’re 
caught on every side. What are we going to 
do?” The fear of death was on him. He trem¬ 
bled and wet his lips with his tongue as he 
stared wildly about him. 

“There’s nothing we can do but run the 


208 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


rapids now,” Pierre shouted back, in order to 
make himself heard. “Help me roll these logs 
into the water!” 

Between them they soon had the two logs 
bobbing in the current. Pierre called Anne and 
strapped her on one of them. 

“Hug the log; keep your arms around it and 
your head low. If it rolls over, roll with it.” 

He kicked off his boots then. Amiel had al¬ 
ready bound Malvern to the other log, and he 
stood waiting for Pierre to start. 

“Just a minute, Amiel,” said Ducharme. 
From his pocket he took a handkerchief, and 
after wetting it, he tied it over Anne’s face. 
“Keep it wet if you can,” he advised, “it may 
save your eyes.” And then to Malvern he con¬ 
tinued : 

“We’ll go first. As soon as we are out of 
sight Amiel will push off after us. If we get 
through the flames and the rapids alive we can 
take it easy the rest of the way, The Micmac 
runs into the Saguenay below the Chute. If 


A RACE FOR LIFE 


209 

anything happens to us, you go on. Under¬ 
stand ?” 

Both men nodded that they did. Pierre did 
not wait longer. He pushed the log out into 
the center of the stream, and the next moment 
it went shooting away. He clung to it savagely, 
his body strung out behind it to serve as a 
rudder. 

The trees on either shore began to whirl by. 
Almost immediately the hot breath of the fire 
began to lick their faces. The leaves of bush 
and tree hung limp and dead. The river swung 
to the south. To ground the log now was to 
die. Pierre flung himself over with all his 
force. The unwieldy log lunged across the cur¬ 
rent. The next second it was around the bend 
safely, but before Ducharme’s eyes there arose 
a solid wall of fire. 

“Now!” he shouted. “Hold your head 
down!” 

Anne could not see, but she could feel the 
blistering blast. In her ears an inferno roared 


2io PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


and boomed. To do her justice her pagan soul 
did not welch. 

It grew hotter and hotter. Flames seemed 
to lick her skin. She felt the log lurch. A 
burning cedar had fallen into the stream. Du- 
charme grasped a flaming branch and swung 
the log clear. 

Away it bounded. Spray leaped at him. 
They had reached the first of the rapids. . . . 
They were through them. The heat held—a 
second, two seconds. They dared not breathe. 

The roaring passed then. Pierre lifted his 
head out of the water. “IPs all right!” he 
shouted, the words thick. “We’re through! 
Do you hear me?" 

Anne’s fingers fumbled with the handker¬ 
chief, but she was so weak she could not untie 
it. Pierre saw, and he crept along the log until 
he reached her. He gave the handkerchief a 
jerk and ripped it off. Anne smiled at him 
wanly. 

The rapids remained. They drew away from 


A RACE FOR LIFE 211 

the roaring of the flames to encounter a new 
danger. In the pitch to which he was keyed, 
Pierre felt supremely confident. His face and 
flame-seared hands were a throbbing fiery tor¬ 
ture. 

Dazed as she was, Anne realized that they 
neared the white water where death lurked. 
Suddenly, black, dripping rocks loomed beside 
her. Invisible hands tried to pluck her away 
from the trembling log. She had to open her 
eyes. There, directly in their path, arose two 
solid ledges of rock, the space between them 
so narrow she could have reached out her hands 
and touched both sides. 

It seemed impossible that Ducharme could 
swing the log in time, or hold it to its course 
until they had passed safely through. She could 
not turn to see the superhuman effort he made. 
Dumbly thankful, she knew only that the log 
swerved to the right, that some force held it 
to its course, that the rocks slipped passed and 
that they floated serenely in the pool below. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


FAREWELL 

Pierre threw himself down upon the wet 
sand when he had beached the log. He was thor¬ 
oughly spent with his effort. Anne’s heart 
smote her as she gazed at him, his eyebrows 
burned off and great red welts on his face and 
hands. In appearance they were a sorry-look- 
ing pair. Appearances had always meant 
everything to her, but for once she rose above 
anything so petty. A great sense of gratitude 
filled her. She was not without a certain sense 
of shame, too, at her conduct these past weeks. 
It was penitence that would not last, of course. 

Anne did not recognize this, however, having 
been penitent so seldom. She bent and kissed 
Pierre. The caress was passionless. Indeed 
such was her mood that she became the benefici¬ 
ary of her own kiss. She felt raised, exalted, 
212 


FAREWELL 


213 

as if a benediction had been pronounced over 
her. 

The novelty of such an emotion recommended 
it to her. It carried no promise of devotion or 
faithfulness. It did not mean that in a month 
from now, or a week, or even a day, she 
would recognize it as binding. If the mood 
or cause showed itself she would undoubtedly 
hurt him, scheme against him and deliver him 
to his enemies. 

She might even come to hate and despise him. 
Such a thought did not occur to her now, and 
if it had she would not have recognized it, for 
this moment was Ducharme’s. For a few brief, 
fleeting seconds he was supreme. She felt 
actually humble before him, sensing a fineness 
in him which she could never attain. 

Amiel waded ashore at her feet. She was 
not aware of him until he spoke to her. He 
carried Malvern in his arms, blood trickling 
from Jim’s right temple, his face a deathly 
white beneath its coating of dirt. 


214 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

“He’s dead!” Anne screamed. 

Pierre sat up wearily in time to see Amiel 
shake his head. 

“No, he is not dead. His head strike a rock 
in the last rapide. Trees down all the way. We 
have pretty bad time. ,, 

Anne washed away the blood and poured 
handfuls of cold water on Malvern’s face. 

“He is coming to,” Pierre announced, and 
then threw himself down to rest again without 
waiting to see his prophecy come true. 

Malvern opened his eyes a minute later* 

“We’re safe,” Anne said to him. 

The expression on Malvern’s face did not 
change for the longest while. “The tree,” he 
whispered falteringly then, trying to point to 
the wound he had received. 

“I know, the tree,” said Anne. “You’ll be 
all right in a minute or two. Try and rest. 
Pierre says we can walk to the river from 
here.” 

Amiel had thrown himself down on the sand, 


FAREWELL 


215 

and Anne did likewise now. Ten minutes later, 
although it seemed not half so long, Pierre bade 
them get up. Malvern’s wound was still bleed¬ 
ing slightly. Anne bandaged it while they 
waited. 

"It’s not over two miles to the river,” Pierre 
said to them. “We’ll be out of the timber 
shortly.” He looked very tired, his eyes deep 
in their sockets. 

It was early afternoon before they found a 
boat. Once across the Saguenay, they set out 
for a tiny farm-house a mile above where they 
had crossed. The farmer, Isadore Besant, and 
his wife and all the little Besants came out to 
see them. Isadore was profane in his admira¬ 
tion for what they had accomplished. From 
him they borrowed a horse and wagon. 

“You don’t think the fire will leap the river, 
Isadore?” Pierre asked. 

Isadore shrugged his shoulders. Truly one 
could not tell. His boat was ready, the family 
belongings packed. At the first sign of danger 


216 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

he would order his family aboard and go down 
river. 

Roughly, it was ten miles to Bois Blanc from 
Isadore’s farm. The road hugged the river all 
the way. The current of air over the water 
caused the smoke to lift, but even so the oppo¬ 
site bank could not be seen. The racing fire 
was still some distance away from the shore, 
but the sound of its coming filled their ears. 

“It’s going to burn right to the river’s edge,” 
Malvern declared. 

“I’m afraid so,” Pierre admitted, “although 
the wind is shifting a bit.” 

The truth of this became apparent soon after. 

“Thank God!” Pierre cried. “This side of 
the river is safe now.” 

The heartfelt exclamation caused Anne to 
glance at him sharply. She fancied she under¬ 
stood his relief. Thoughts of Gloria straight¬ 
ened her mouth into a sullen line. 

The road was such that they must go slowly. 
A ringing shout some distance ahead of them 


FAREWELL 217 

broke upon their ears several hours later. It 
was Felix. He ran up to them excitedly. He 
had always been a shy and untalkative person 
in the presence of Malvern and his guests, but 
he was far from being so now. He laughed 
and cried alternately as he embraced Ducharme. 
He seemed unable to believe that his eyes told 
him the truth. 

It was some minutes before they coald go on. 
Bois Blanc burst upon them at last—a white 
monument for the dead and blackened forest 
which had once been its pride. Where only 
yesterday there had been beauty was now only 
ugliness. 

“We started to backfire this morning,” Felix 
explained apologetically, reading their thought. 

“You did the right thing,” Pierre assured 
him. “It was the only way of being sure of 
saving the buildings.” 

Anne noticed a movement on the wide 
veranda. A cry went up, and Gloria and Brom 
and the Warrens, followed by the servants in 


218 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


a body, ran toward them. In that moment 
Anne forgot herself to stare at Ducharme. The 
light which kindled in his eyes as Gloria stopped 
before him was answer enough . . . and she 
laughed—the cold, mocking laughter that had 
so long been her weapon of defense. 

“I knew you would make it,” Gloria ex¬ 
claimed, her eyes shining. The movement of 
her lips told plainly how great an effort it was 
for her to hold herself back. “I wouldn't give 
you up. Felix and I never gave up hope.” 

This was said to all of them, but Anne 
fancied it was meant only for Ducharme. 
Surely it had been Pierre who had called forth 
her faith in their ability to win out. 

They were deluged with questions. It cov¬ 
ered an embarrassing moment for Gloria, and 
for Malvern, too, for the matter of that. Anne 
wondered if she were the only one who noticed 
that Jim was obviously courting the questions 
being put to him, in order to avoid Gloria. 
Anne had not expected them to rush into each 


FAREWELL 


219 

other’s arms, nor was she prepared for Gloria’s 
calm, dignified reserve, or for Malvern’s ill- 
concealed fear of meeting his wife’s eyes 
squarely. 

It was Brom who stopped the flow of ques¬ 
tions and insisted that they be put to bed at 
once. While they slept and nourishing foods 
were prepared for them, the incessant hum of 
voices arose from the veranda. The Warrens 
saw r no need of staying on longer now. Brom 
agreed. 

“Fm sure Gloria and Jim will get away as 
soon as possible,” he declared. “It’s going to 
be a day or two, though, before we can ask 
Anne to go.” 

“She seems to have stood the ordeal remark¬ 
ably well,” Warren murmured. What he really 
meant to say was that Anne appeared as if she 
had had a rather interesting day or two, and 
it was exactly this that the others understood 
him to be saying. Sue and Brom exchanged a 
knowing glance. Gloria joined them then, and 


220 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


Brom promptly asked her if she had made any 
plans. 

“We will have to go as soon as Anne and 
Jim and Pierre are fit to leave,” she answered. 
“It doesn’t seem as if I could get through an¬ 
other day here, everything is so black and dis¬ 
mal. I haven’t the heart to stir away from 
the house.” 

This was but an echo of what the rest felt. 
Pierre found himself in high favor when he 
announced the following day that he felt quite 
himself again. Malvern left his bed on the 
second day, but Anne, who had apparently been 
the least touched by her experience, developed 
a case of nerves, and it was the end of the week 
before the launch was ordered to take them 
to Chicoutimi. 

Pierre said nothing to his people about his 
leaving until the day of departure arrived. 
Antoine, Amiel, Maria, old Peter—all except 
Felix were so stunned by the news that they 
were unable to argue against his going. 


FAREWELL 


221 


“You are making- a great mistake, Pierre,” 
Felix declared. Pierre and he were alone in 
the boat-house at the time. “You do not un¬ 
derstand these people; they do not understand 
you . . . and they will not even try to do so.” 

“Perhaps that is why I go, Felix,” Pierre 
answered, his thoughts roaming back to the 
day he had spent with Gloria at the falls of the 
Au Sable. “Pm afraid we have never tried 
to understand them, either.” 

Felix laughed sarcastically* “Understand 
them? They do not understand themselves. 
Think . . . just another week and all the out¬ 
siders will be gone. We'll have the woods to 
ourselves again. We can smile and be happy, 
like we were! You know what we said at the 
election last spring . . . that next year it would 
be you that we would send to Ottawa. You 
must have forgotten.” 

Pierre's expression said clearly enough that 
he had not forgotten. He shook his head as 
he got up and turned to look across the river. 


222 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


“No, Felix, it is not that I forget—I know that 
my place is here. And yet, I must go to-day. 
I have thought over this question for weeks. 
Always the answer has been the same . . . 
'You must go!' I have always been frank with 
you, but for once I cannot be. This decision 
of mine is no sudden whim. I am not chasing 
rainbows, or even daring to dream . . . but 
something in here, Felix, makes me go." 

Something in his heart . . . Felix gazed at 
Ducharme with eyes eloquent with tenderness. 
The words that trembled on his tongue could 
not be said. Not that he was surprised . . . 
Pierre but confirmed a fear that had been his 
for weeks. The pity of it! 

Felix was humble, close to the soil, but he 
could understand, for he was of a race that has 
always been swayed by romance. 

It was Malvern's wish that Felix should be 
placed in charge during the winter. Matters 
had been talked over thoroughly, but even so, 
Felix gladly turned the conversation to this safe 


FAREWELL 


223 

channel again. It served to mask his emotion, 
and unknown to him, Pierre welcomed it for 
the same reason. 

By eight o’clock every one was aboard the 
launch. The servants lined up in a row to wave 
good-by. Their eyes were misty with tears. 

“That’s not for us, you know,” Brom mur¬ 
mured to Anne as the launch chugged away 
from the landing. 

“I hardly supposed it was,” she answered. 
“I feel a bit like crying myself.” 

“Over him?” Brom whispered tantalizingly, 
nodding toward Pierre. 

Anne threw up her head and stopped Brom 
with a flash of her eyes. “Is there any one 
else in this launch worth crying over ?” she de¬ 
manded with telling effect. 

Brom did not answer at once. He nodded 
his head mysteriously. “One other, I fancy,” 
he said finally, and Anne did not ask to be 
enlightened. 


PART THREE 

CHAPTER XXVIII 

EASY MONEY 

The Malverns had been back at The Towers 
for a month when Jim began to question the 
success of his scheme to throw Gloria into 
Pierre’s arms. He had met Anne clandestinely 
several times. Her pessimism had stung him. 
On their last ride together she had insisted on 
returning to Paris. Malvern had been sorely 
put to dissuade her. He told himself that if 
his plans had not matured it was his own fault; 
he had been too cautious. He had feared that 
Gloria would break with him, and to avert such 
a calamity he had been careful of his conduct, 
giving her no reason to suspect him. His role 
of dutiful husband had defeated his own ends. 
He could see that now. 

As a result of this reasoning he gave up any 

224 


EASY MONEY 


225 

thought of restraint, besieging. Anne with at¬ 
tentions. Anne, however, frowned on this, al¬ 
though she did go to Malvern Farm with him 
once or twice. Balked by her, he found other 
excuses for absenting himself from Gloria’s 
presence. Often two or three days at a time 
passed without their seeing anything of one 
another. The loans he had needed had been 
negotiated. Financially, Malvern felt that he 
could weather any storm. He even began to 
hope that Gloria would divorce him; he knew 
that society was whispering such a thing al¬ 
ready. His way was preferable, but if it failed, 
and it seemed now that it would, for nothing 
went on at The Towers but was reported to 
him, then Gloria must divorce him. 

He understood Ducharme; but Gloria had 
become a mystery to him. The Frenchman was 
plainly “fed up,” bored, as out of key with his 
surroundings as a man could be. Society had 
fawned on him, but Ducharme had read the ges¬ 
ture for what it was worth. 


226 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


Malvern understood this; but he had no way 
of knowing that Pierre’s nearness to Gloria had 
become a torture to the man. Gloria did not 
suspect it either. How could she know that 
every little kindness she showed him but 
brought home more poignantly the realization 
of what he had been denied in the scheme of 
things ? He felt that he must go north again, 
or die. And yet he could not tear himself away. 
He had come to hate his position as Malvern’s 
guest, even as he had come to despise Malvern. 
(He had caught a thinly veiled allusion to him¬ 
self and Gloria in the columns of a certain 
weekly magazine.) 

He could not understand Gloria’s patience 
with Malvern. It was uncomplaining, stoical! 
He knew she was frightfully unhappy. Why 
she chose to go on was as much a mystery to 
him as it was to Malvern. In fact, in many 
ways he understood her even less than Jim did. 
Without having said so, he sensed that she felt 


EASY MONEY 


227 

the servants were spying on her. He had that 
feeling, too. 

Some men would have taken it as a warning, 
but Malvern was so far from having any 
thought of letting Gloria see what was in his 
heart that his conduct was affected not at all. 
It was a capital error on his part. If he had 
been aware of Wheeler Johnson's existence and 
had realized the man's peculiar talents, he 
would not have been rash enough to believe 
that he was quite through with Renee Grant. 
He had ended the opulence which had been 
Wheeler’s for many years, and the injustice 
which had smoldered in Wheeler's mean little 
soul had broken into flame after a bad week at 
Latonia and a more disastrous one at Fort Erie. 
Renee was dancing again, so Wheeler's appeal 
had been promptly answered. He had returned 
to New York determined to make Malvern 
“come through." The zeal with which he al¬ 
ways read the society news in the different 
New York papers would have flattered its mem- 


228 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

bers. It was an old habit of Wheeler's. But 
of course he was, or, rather, had been, strictly 
dependent on society. It followed that he knew 
the Malverns had returned to The Towers. He 
had even noted the reference to Ducharme. At 
the time he had thought little enough of it; but 
he was no sooner back in town than he set about 
satisfying his curiosity as to the exact state of 
affairs in the Malvern household. Fortune 
favored him, for among the Malvern servants 
he found an old acquaintance in the person of 
Tim Eagan, now a hostler in the big Westches¬ 
ter estate. Tim's wife was a parlor maid. An 
evening in the Eagan cottage and Wheeler had 
trouble in containing himself. Long after the 
lights of Broadway had winked out, he let him¬ 
self into Renee's suite in the Standish Hotel, 
situated in one of the once roaring Forties— 
quite a step, by the way from the luxury of the 
“bird-cage" of happy memory. 

Renee had just come in. She had slipped 
into a very revealing negligee. Wheeler found 


EASY MONEY 


229 

her curled up on a comfortable divan, deep in 
the columns of the morning papers. He tossed 
his hat aside carelessly as she looked up. 

“Where have you been?” she inquired. 

“Eve been spending a very quiet evening in 
the country,” Wheeler answered deeply. 

“What part of the country?” Renee’s tone 
made him smile. 

“The most fashionable part,” said he. “Rye, 
to be exact.” 

“Wheeler!” 

Renee crumpled her papers as she pushed 
them out of her way angrily. 

“Oh, you needn’t get excited,” he cautioned 
her. “I’m going to hand you the biggest laugh 
of your life.” 

Renee was not interested in his promise. 

“You know that I warned you to keep away 
from Malvern. I’m not going to shake him 
down. When I change my mind, I’ll let you 
know. He came through like a prince for years. 
If I didn’t save a stake for myself, that’s my 


2 3 o PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

fault. Tve got some pride, Wheeler; Pm not 
going to squeeze him.” 

“Well, Pm telling you there wouldn’t be a 
chance of your doing it. You can quit worry¬ 
ing about that. I met an old friend of mine 
at The Towers—Tim Eagan. He’s looking 
after Malvern’s horses. His wife’s in the 
house, a maid or something like that. I got 
an earful. The Malverns will be going through 
the divorce mill in another month. If she don’t 
start the ball rolling, he will.” 

“Is that the big laugh?” Renee asked, un¬ 
willing to have Wheeler see how interested she 
was in what he was telling her. 

“Laugh? Say!—wait! You’ve heard about 
this guide Malvern brought down with him 
from Canada?—Ducharme is his name, a big 
Frenchman. Well, it’s a plant—just a plant. 
On the square of it I don’t see how Malvern 
got away downtown. You always thought he 
was clever. Humph! I saw through his game 
in bringing this guy Ducharme down to New 


EASY MONEY 


231 


York before Tim had finished telling me about 
him. This Frenchman is a handsome gent; 
he’s knocked the society dames for a row of 
gools. Something happened up in Canada to 
make Malvern think his wife was sweet on 
Ducharme. You know the drag the north 
woods gag has for some women. Your clever 
Jim brought him along to keep his wife com¬ 
pany. Tim and the rest of the servants got the 
office to keep their eyes open. I guess you can 
figure out what was in Malvern’s mind. But 
it’s been a bust. This Ducharme is not a fool. 
It looks to me as if he was wise to the lay. Or 
maybe Malvern’s wife got a flash of what was 
on and gummed the works.” 

Renee found fault with Wheeler’s logic. 

“You wouldn’t admit that any one could be 
on the square, would you, Wheeler ?—especially 
a woman.” 

“Sure I will when you can prove it to me. 
Though I ain’t throwing any dirt at Mrs. Mal¬ 
vern, From what I hear, I guess she’s the 


232 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

goods. But I don’t get her. Malvern’s treated 
her like a dog. Maybe she’s sticking on ac¬ 
count of the money. Take it from me that she 
knows he’s been stepping out with another 
dame.” 

“Who?” 

Renee fairly whipped out the single word. 
The next instant she realized utter indifference 
should have been her role. To cover up, she 
added: 


“Some show-girl, I suppose.” 


CHAPTER XXIX 


A CONFIDENTIAL MISSION 

Wheeler glanced at Renee with a grin on 
his face. Her exclamation had betrayed her, 
and therefore, he let her wait for her answer. 

“So you are interested, eh?” he said taunt¬ 
ingly, and paused to light a cigarette with pro¬ 
voking deliberation. “You seem surprised to 
hear that a woman is at the bottom of this. 
What would Malvern want a divorce for if 

there wasn’t another woman--” 

“Who is it? Who is the woman?” Renee 
interrupted impatiently. 

Wheeler shook his head. “That’s something 
of a secret,” he drawled. “I didn’t know my¬ 
self when I left Rye to-night; but I got the 
answer now. Tim had it from Malvern’s pri¬ 
vate chauffeur that the big boss had ’phoned 

him to a bring a car to White Plains three or 
233 



234 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

four times lately. Malvern would drive away 
by himself. Maybe it’d be two in the morning 
before he come back to pick up his man. I 
didn’t say nothing to Tim, but if I ain’t solved 
that puzzle, I’m a fool. I don’t know anybody 
who’d fit into this; but Scarsdale ain’t so far 
from White Plains. There’s a big society gun 
down there—a yellow glow-worm—the very 
sort of a dame Malvern would be apt to fall for 
—been to Mrs. Malvern’s parties right along— 
been north with ’em, too. There ain’t a chance 
that I’m wrong. . . . Do you follow me?” 

Renee nodded tragically. She got up, her 
face white. 

“Anne Cabot!” She almost whispered the 
name. 

“Anne Cabot—the Governor’s sister!” 
Wheeler exclaimed triumphantly. “I guess 
that hands you a laugh, don’t it?” 

The news staggered Renee. She told her¬ 
self that it was only a surmise—a blind grop¬ 
ing in the dark on Wheeler’s part. And yet 


A CONFIDENTIAL MISSION 235 

she could not deny it; something told her that 
she had heard the truth. She even wondered 
why it should matter so to her. Malvern was 
out of her life; Anne Cabot was only a name. 
Why should Wheeler’s chatter alarm her ? 

The room had suddenly become stifling. She 
went to the window and stood there gazing 
down on the deserted street. Wheeler caught 
her excitement. 

“I thought it would hand you a jolt,” said he. 

A night-hawk taxi came tearing down the 
street. Renee watched it, thinking how much 
it resembled a human down-and-outer with its 
one bright headlight shining wisely beside its 
pale, twitching brother. 

“You’d better forget this, Wheeler,” she 
muttered. “You are just guessing. It couldn’t 
mean anything to you.” 

“No? Well, I’m not so sure about that. As 
for me guessing—I aim to make certain before 
this week’s over.” 

“I tell you to forget it!” Renee exclaimed 


236 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

angrily as she turned to face him. “What is 
it you are thinking of, anyhow?” 

“Oh—nothing.” 

“It’s as bad as that, eh?” 

“IPs nothing to you,” Wheeler flared back. 
“You're not going to be mixed up in anything. 
Why, Malvern wouldn’t want anything better 
than to have you squeal. He’d get his divorce, 
wouldn’t he? I’m not crazy. I’m not fool 
enough to waste my time trying to jack him 
down on your account. ThatY out!” 

“But you’re going after him in another way. 
I can read you, Wheeler. I tell you, I won’t 
have it!” 

“I’m doing it for you!” he said stubbornly. 
“He can’t chuck you and get away with it.” 

“Doing it for me, eh?” Renee repeated with 
a sarcastic tilting of her mouth. Her eyes 
snapped as she regarded him. “Now you are 
funny,” she said. “Maybe we’d better be frank 
with each other, Wheeler. You know we are 
near the break.” Wheeler protested, but she 


A CONFIDENTIAL MISSION 237 

did not heed him. “If you don’t know it,” she 
went on, “you are blind. Fve stood about all 
I intend to from you. If you go through with 
what you’ve got on your mind, we’re done. You 
get that straight, Wheeler!” 

“Now what do you want to go on like that 
for?” Wheeler entreated; he had sense enough 
to recognize the danger signals. “I ain’t never 
crossed you, have I ? I tell you I wouldn’t ever 
have give it a second thought but for you. It 
burns me up to think of that big stiff getting 
away with what he did on you—throwing you 
down cold. But if you say so, it’s off.” 

But, of course, it was not. Wheeler re¬ 
garded this opportunity as the “softest” thing 
in his life; he could no more forego it than fly. 
If Malvern proved obdurate, he would threaten 
—Anne. Where would John Cabot be if this 
thing got into print? 

“Why, it’s a sure thing,” he told himself. 
“Somebody’s got to come through. And it’s 
going to be for real dough, too.” 


238 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

He wisely said nothing further to Renee. 
Three days later she gladly gave him a “stake” 
to take him to Bowie. But his destination lay 
in another direction. By the end of the week 
he knew that he had not been mistaken about 
Anne. 

His sources of information were strange—or 
so certain prominent society people would have 
found them—taxi-drivers, show-girls—dis¬ 
charged servants and a bootlegger. 

Such information as he was after came easily 
to Wheeler, and he took a pardonable pride in 
his success, his only regret being that he could 
not parade himself and his information before 
Renee. 


CHAPTER XXX 


AN INTERRUPTED LUNCHEON 

The world is excessively fond of scandal and 
gossip, or else such a paper as Exit —with the 
accent on the last syllable—could not have pros- 
pered. Gloria’s mother pretended that she 
found it very offensive, but coming upon a copy 
in a friend’s dressing-room—obviously placed 
there for her eyes—she had not hesitated to 
turn its pages. A two column picture of Renee 
rewarded her. Renee was in a fair way of re¬ 
gaining her old prestige on Broadway. The 
picture, without the accompanying blurb, would 
have meant nothing to Mrs. Dawn. The blurb, 
however, won her complete attention. It said: 

“Radiant Renee continues to score a triumph at 
the Golden Canary, James Malvern, the railroad 

magnate, entertained a party of friends at the ring- 
239 


240 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

side last evening. We wonder what Renee was 
thinking about as she sang the chorus of I’ve Kissed 
You, Daddy . Stranger things have happened.” 

It took Mrs. Dawn less than an hour to rush 
to Gloria’s side. Gloria took it coldly. Her 
mother was insistent, however. She qime away 
from The Towers in a wrathful mood, deter¬ 
mined that Gloria should leave Malvern at once. 

Gloria was almost glad that her mother knew 
at last. Even if she had tried to make the 
breach between Jim and herself less wide than 
it was, her mother had learned enough to de¬ 
mand more. Gloria understood her well enough 
to know that she would have the whole truth 
sooner or later. It would be dragged out of 
her bit by bit. Well, perhaps that was best. 
Gloria felt that it but hastened the end. 

Malvern had taken his friends to the Golden 
Canary well aware that Renee was dancing 
there. He had half hoped that something would 
be made of it. Renee had been surprised to see 


AN INTERRUPTED LUNCHEON 241 

him. The blurb in Exit amused her. She un¬ 
derstood that the final curtain had fallen on 
their affair. Still, it was good publicity! In 
many ways, she had ceased to regret losing 
Malvern. She felt that he might have stayed 
away from the Golden Canary; it would have 
been the decent thing to do. 

To make matters worse, she had to run into 
him on Monday as she got out of her taxi at 
the Waldorf. It was a grim twist of fate that 
brought them together, for Malvern rarely 
lunched uptown. In the old days Waldorf had 
been beyond the pale for Renee—a place Mal¬ 
vern had denied her either in his company or 
alone. Perhaps that was why she consented 
to lunch there with him this day; perhaps that 
was why Malvern asked her. He knew just 
how reckless the adventure was, but he was in 
the mood for it, even thrilled, in a way, al¬ 
though Renee and he found little to talk about. 
Which was quite natural under the circum¬ 


stances. 


242 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Suddenly he felt, rather than saw, Renee 
stiffen. Gustav, the head-waiter, was coming 
toward them, importance fairly beaming on his 
rotund face. Behind him came Mrs. Schuyler 
Van Rensellear and Gloria. Mrs. Van's eye¬ 
lids raised for a fleeting second as she saw 
Malvern. 

“That little table over by the window, Gus¬ 
tav," Malvern heard her say. He might not 
have been there as she passed, for any further 
sign from her. 

Gloria recognized Renee for the lady of the 
picture. Something of Ducharme's stoicism 
came to her in this moment, and she gave her 
husband a nod and a smile as she passed him. 
It crushed Malvern. Whole minutes passed 
before he spoke to Renee. 

“If you've finished, we will go," said he. 

“Why so shaky, Jim?" Renee asked lightly. 
“I thought you had better stuff in you than that. 
You've accomplished the very thing you had in 
mind." 


AN INTERRUPTED LUNCHEON 243 

“And that was that?” he demanded rather 
crossly. 

“The big break/’ 

“What gave you that idea?” 

“Oh—nothing,” Renee said evasively, realiz¬ 
ing that she had said too much. 

Jim wondered just why the truth from Renee 
should embarrass him. It was a second or 
two before he answered. 

“Well, it’s the truth,” Malvern declared as 
he recovered some of his poise. “It can’t come 
too quickly.” 

“It won’t be exactly pleasant for me, will 
it ?” Renee demanded very pointedly. 

“Perhaps not; but see me through. You’ll 
have nothing to regret,” he assured her. 

They left then. 

“The rotter!” Mrs. Van muttered. It was 
her only comment. Gloria did not reply. She 
might well have confided in Mrs. Van, but pride 
locked her lips. She had come to town to shop, 
but as soon as Mrs. Van left, Gloria ordered 


244 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

her chauffeur to drive her home. Ducharme 
had gone to Malvern Farm to see Jim’s bird 
dogs. She was glad he was not there to read 
her excitement. During the afternoon her 
mother telephoned, but Gloria did not speak to 
her. Tears had brought no relief. She felt 
that she had to confide in some one, or die; and 
yet she could not bring herself to unburden 
her soul to her mother. She thought of Abe 
Ascher; Abe would understand. But how 
could she admit to him that she had made this 
terrible mistake ? 

Her ideas of divorce were vague. She knew 
she would have to see an attorney. He would 
know how one got a divorce. Her helplessness 
smote her; other women knew about such 
things. 

A maid brought up the evening papers. 
Gloria made her take them away; newspapers 
loomed in her eyes as things of horror. In 
fancy, she saw her name scrawled across the 
front pages—all of the intimate details of her 


AN INTERRUPTED LUNCHEON 245 

life spread out for the entertainemnt of New 
York's millions. The thought sickened her. 
She tried to sleep, but she was far too nervous 
for that. There was a hint of fall in the eve¬ 
ning air, a golden harvest moon hung low over 
the cedars. She dressed, and throwing a light 
wrap around her shoulders, came downstairs 
and went out upon the wide terrace which 
circled the big house. 


CHAPTER XXXI 


REVELATION 

Ducharme returned shortly after ten o’clock. 
He came out on the terrace a few minutes later. 
Seeing him brought her a sense of relief. Un¬ 
consciously, she had been waiting for him. She 
realized as much now. It startled her. Her 
lips trembled as she smiled at Pierre. He sat 
down beside her. She thought he seemed un¬ 
usually reserved, even solemn. 

“Your face is drawn, Pierre,” she said 
anxiously. “You’re not ill?” 

“No, madame,” he answered wearily. “Just 
tired.” 

“What, Ducharme tired?” Gloria queried 
teasingly. Pierre smiled. 

“You see, madame, even the impossible 
happens.” 


246 


REVELATION 


247 

“And the dogs—were they up to what you 
had heard about them?” 

“Good show-dogs; but they need work. At 
that, they are no better than my own. A Gor¬ 
don setter, a big black fellow, caught my fancy. 
But it’s a strange breed; you can’t tell about a 
Gordon, until you have shot over him. I found 
Gregory interesting. He knows nothing about 
dogs, though.” 

Pierre did not say that he found the farmer- 
caretaker of the place interesting chiefly be¬ 
cause the man had volunteered the information 
that Mr. and Mrs. Malvern had been up to the 
farm three nights before. They had arrived 
after dusk and stayed but a short while. 
Gregory had not spoken to Mrs. Malvern; but 
he had noticed her in the car as her husband 
waved to him from the private road. 

Ducharme had not suggested that he might 
be mistaken; but he knew for a fact that Gloria 
had not been within twenty-five miles of Mal¬ 
vern Farm in four weeks. There was only one 


248 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

conclusion left him. It was no more than he 
had suspected. His surprise was that Malvern 
had been bold enough to bring another woman 
to a place that he might reasonably expect 
Gloria to visit sooner or later. He could not 
have known but what his companion would 
have to face the Gregorys. He had not cared, 
evidently. It made his conduct particularly dis¬ 
gusting to Ducharme. He wanted to advise 
Gloria, but, obviously, he could not. Unless 
she made the request, he could say nothing. It 
was a silly code—he felt that—but it passed 
for a law of honor among men. It was no 
longer possible for him to stay at The Towers. 
He would have to move to town in the morn¬ 
ing. Beyond that he had no plans. 

The tired, hurt look in Gloria’s eyes stabbed 
at his heart. If he only had the right to fight 
this thing for her! If she could lean on him! 
What good was his often-tested strength?— 
the years of clean living? In the hour of his 


REVELATION 


249 

greatest need he found himself powerless, 
impotent! 

“You had a pleasant day in town?” he asked. 
The words grated on his ears, his question but 
proving anew how impersonal his position was 
in regard to Gloria. He was surprised to see 
her shake her head. 

“A very disastrous one,” said she. 
“Socially?” 

“No—mentally.” 

Her lips twitched tremulously over the ad¬ 
mission. Ducharme glanced at her sharply. 
Her face seemed more wistful than ever in the 
half-light. 

“Some one offended you!” he exclaimed, his 
voice betraying him for once. It was not a 
question; he could read Gloria’s eyes too well 
for that. Something snapped in Ducharme. 
He put his hand on hers; caught it in his grasp. 
Had Malvern shamed her publicly? 

“Who was it?” he murmured huskily. “Tell 


250 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

me-” His voice broke; he had almost called 

her Gloria. 

His personality laid violent hands on Gloria. 
She seemed caught up—drawn out of herself. 
Reserve slipped away from her. Barriers that 
she had never thought to scale were left far 
behind. A will stronger than her own seemed 
to motivate her. She realized that she was tell¬ 
ing Ducharme what had happened. Her voice 
sounded strange to her ears. As she went on, 
she gradually won control of herself; her taut 
nerves relaxed, a weight seemed to have been 
lifted from her. Her spirit was leaning on 
Ducharme. She realized as much in a vague, 
subconscious way. It did not frighten her or 
make her pause to ask why it should be so. As 
she spoke, her mind kept leaping ahead to van¬ 
tage points from which she could look back 
on the past weeks. She saw what a tangled, 
impossible existence hers had been. By com¬ 
parison she felt almost normal as she went on. 
She told him of incidents that had happened at 



REVELATION 


251 

Bois Blanc; of the days before Malvern and 
she had gone north. Something in Ducharme’s 
eyes made her stop suddenly. 

“Why, Pierre!” she gasped. “You know— 
you are not surprised.” 

'No, I knew at Bois Blanc,” he murmured. 

“I—I presume you did,” she went on slowly. 
“The others must have known, too. It was 
foolish of me, but I hoped and hoped that Jim 
and I could avoid what we’ve come to.” She 
looked away without speaking for ever so long. 
“It is not easy to admit that one has made such 
a terrible failure of everything,” she said at 
last. “Ideals shattered—dreams all gone to 
smash.” 

Ducharme got up and gazed down at the 
pool below them. Gloria did not hear the groan 
that escaped his lips. Her eyes followed him, 
however. She arose and walked to where he 
stood. 

“Pierre,” she said softly, “tell me, has it been 
all my fault? Where did I fail?” 


252 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Ducharme whirled on her. : 

“Fail?” he echoed. “You have not failed! 
To me you are as a white rose—as spotless, as 
unspoiled, as I have seen them in the early 
morning before the sun burns away the dew. 
My countrymen are plain people, and yet they 
have come to be critical of outsiders; but you 
won them. Here in New York, many people 
have come into your life; they have been better 
for knowing you—all save Malvern. But surely 
it has not remained for me to tell you so. As 
for failing—you have not failed, Madame. One 
fails only when he is untrue to the best that is 
in him.” 

A tear stole down Gloria’s cheek as she gazed 
away at the mist creeping over the closely- 
cropped lawn. “You are very kind, Pierre,” 
she said. It was hardly more than a whisper. 
“But I’m afraid you flatter me; you have al¬ 
ways been very considerate. I have shuddered 
at the thought of divorce. Still, the world can 
hardly expect me to go on.” 


REVELATION 


253 

She did not raise her eyes. Ducharme 
nodded, his jaws locked. “I would not worry 
about what the world will say,” said he. “There 
are some things one must decide for himself.; 
This is one of them. But I feel that I must 
not advise you. And yet I would do you any 
service that I could. Perhaps you will find me 
hard to understand. I assure you that it is 
not because of Malvern that I hesitate. He 
has forfeited the right to any consideration 
from me, even though I am here as his guest. 
Anyhow, I am leaving in the morning.” 

This came as a fresh calamity to Gloria. 

“You are not going back to Canada, Pierre?” 
she asked unevenly. 

He trembled as he caught her concern. He 
said jerkily: 

“For the present I am going to remain in 
New York. If you should need me, I—it would 
be an honor to serve you.” The desire to take 
her into his arms almost overwhelmed him; he 
knew he dared not stay on the terrace with her* 


254 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

He glanced at his watch nervously. It was 
after midnight. Gloria nodded. 

“It is late/’ she murmured. “I do not sup¬ 
pose that I will see you before the time you 
leave.” 

“Perhaps not. I will let your mother know 
where I am staying,” he added.as they walked 
toward the house. 

A servant switched on the lights as they 
reached the steps. A moment later a car drew 
up and Malvern stepped out. He had been 
drinking. He stared sullenly at Gloria. 

The picture he made in his present condition 
sickened her. Determination that she little sus¬ 
pected she possessed flared in her. 

“Jim,” she whispered hoarsely, “both of us 
cannot stay in this house to-night. Either you 
go, or I shall.” 

Pritchett, the butler, backed away. 

“Remain where you are, Pritchett,” Gloria 
ordered. “I am certain you will hear nothirig^ 
that will shock or surprise you.” 


REVELATION 255 

Pritchett bowed humbly, but without his 
usual aplomb, for Gloria's shot had pierced his 
armor. 

“And you, Ducharme, you can stay too,” 
Malvern exclaimed insolently. “Apparently we 
have no secrets from you.” Gloria caught 
Pierre's arm as he took a step toward Malvern. 
Malvern laughed drunkenly. 

“I will not disturb you,” he said to Gloria. 
“I'll go—I'll go—gladly! Gladly, do you un¬ 
derstand? But why throw stones at me?” The 
words seemed to please him and he repeated 
them, more to himself than to Gloria. “So 
you're goin' to divorce me, eh?” he mumbled 
thickly. 'S all right! Sauce for the goose and 
vinegar for the gander—but fair enough! But 
don't look so abused—you've had Ducharme.” 

Malvern could not have foreseen the effect 
his words would produce, or else he would 
not have uttered them, for, in the final analysis, 
he was not a brave man. The stillness that 
followed touched even him. Gloria and 


256 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Ducharme seemed to have been stricken dumb., 
Like a flash, then, Ducharme had him by 
the neck. Up and up he lifted him, until 
he held him so that their faces were on a 
level. 

Gloria groaned as she saw Malvern’s face 
turn purple; his tongue ran out over his lips. 
Ducharme snapped his arms. She heard Mal¬ 
vern’s teeth click as his head shot back and 
forth. It seemed that the life would be shaken 
out of him. 

“You will kill him!” she cried, white of face. 

Ducharme gave no sign that he heard. A 
moment later, however, he relaxed his hold and 
Malvern crumpled to the floor. Pierre stood 
over him menacingly. One of his hands 
reached down and dragged the man to his feet. 
He shook him roughly. 

“Stand up!” he ordered. “You lied, and you 
know it! Beg Mrs. Malvern’s pardon for that 
remark.” 

More sober than he had been Malvern mut- 


REVELATION 


257 

tered an apology. He tried to include Pierre, 
but Ducharme stopped him. 

“Ell accept no apology from you,” he ex¬ 
claimed. “But I warn you, Malvern—don’t 
ever connect my name with your wife’s again. 
I’ll kill you as sure as you do.” 

Ducharme’s eyes flashed. With tigerish 
swiftness his arm straightened. As though 
shot from a gun, Malvern hurtled backwards. 

“Put him in his car!” he said to Pritchett. 
With cheeks burning, and without a word to 
Gloria, he turned and went to his room. 

Half an hour later Gloria heard him leave 
the house. She saw him as he crossed the ter¬ 
race—so tall and erect! Malvern’s words came 
back to burn themselves into her consciousness. 
“You’ve had Ducharme!” 

She repeated them aloud. The blindness 
which had been hers was gone. Knees shak¬ 
ing, she staggered back to bed. 

“I have Ducharme,” she whispered as the 
tears wet her hot cheeks. It was a revelation. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


GUILTY 

Contrary to his promise, Ducharme did not 
let Mrs. Dawn hear from him. For a day or 
two he glanced rather fearfully at the news¬ 
papers, but they were strangely silent concern¬ 
ing the Malverns. He felt that it was but a 
respite from the inevitable scandal to come. 
He fully realized Malvern's purpose in inviting 
him to The Towers. A savage desire to crush 
him gripped Ducharme. He knew better than 
to believe that Malvern would hesitate to blacken 
him to serve his own ends. And what a damn¬ 
ing ring of evidence he had welded about him¬ 
self! The truth, contorted as Malvern would 
contort it, would serve him better than any 
fiction he could invent. 

Pierre could foresee the lurid tale—-the 

trifling wife—the unscrupulous “guide!" It 
258 


GUILTY 


259 

gave him the feeling of having betrayed Gloria. 
At times he was sorry that he had not killed 
Malvern. Instinctively he searched for a 
weapon that would not leave him entirely at 
the man’s mercy. To this end he began trail¬ 
ing Renee Grant. But nothing came of it, for 
he failed to catch a glimpse of Malvern. 

Smarting under a fresh disappointment, he 
decided to go to Malvern Farm, hoping that 
Gregory might make some admission that would 
be of use to him. But for all of his adroitness, 
Pierre could not get any further information 
from him than that Malvern had not been to 
the farm since he, Ducharme, had last been 
there. He accepted Mrs. Gregory’s invitation 
to supper; in fact, it was nearly nine o’clock 
before he set out to walk to the station. He 
had covered more than half the distance to the 
main road when he caught the flash of automo¬ 
bile headlights bearing towards him. He had 
barely concealed himself when the car flashed 
past him. In the brief second he caught the 


260 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


sound of a woman’s voice. From where he 
stood he could see that the car did not stop at 
Gregory’s house but went to the farmhouse 
proper, a distance further on. 

Ducharme had not recognized the driver of 
the car, but he had no reason to doubt that it 
was Malvern. Several minutes passed as he 
stood in the middle of the lane, staring at the 
old farmhouse. Light beamed from the win¬ 
dows then. Ducharme broke into an easy lope. 
He turned from the lane and detoured through 
the apple orchard as he passed the Gregory 
place. A few seconds found him back op the 
narrow road, the house less than a hundred 
yards away. He saw a door open. The man 
who entered left it ajar behind him. A mo¬ 
ment later a shot rang out. Ducharme stopped 
running. The next instant a second shot shat¬ 
tered the stillness—a woman stifled a scream— 
a window was thrown up. . . . Gregory’s dog 
barked. . . . Silence! And inside the farm¬ 
house a man lay dead. 


GUILTY 


261 


Malvern had met Anne that evening at a 
country club between Scarsdale and White 
Plains. He had not known that his car carried 
a third passenger as he sent it bounding away. 
Wheeler Johnson had succeeded in learning 
Malvern's secret, where Ducharme had failed. 
Of course, he had possessed information which 
Pierre did not have. In Wheeler's words—it 
was better,to watch the sugar than the flies. 
For ten days he had shadowed Anne, confident 
that'Malvern would have a rendezvous with her 
sooner or later. 

He was prepared to go to any length to make 
Malvern pay for his silence. On the way north 
from the club he had heard enough to make 
him realize that he had waited almost too long. 
Wheeler almost lost his grip on the top of the 
sedan as he heard Malvern say that he and 
Gloria had separated. The “show-down" must 
come to-night! He took courage as he learned 
their destination. It could not have been or¬ 
dered more to his liking. Malvern was still a 


262 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


married man—night—a lonely farmhouse! 
How could this Cabot dame laugh him down? 
Such a chance might never come again. 

He had no plans to make; none were neces¬ 
sary. This affair to-night called for direct 
action. Impatiently he waited for Malvern and 
Anne to enter. He strained his ears to catch 
the sound of a key turning in the lock. A smile 
crossed his face as he realized that the door 
remained unlocked. Noiselessly he slipped to 
the ground. Gun in hand, he came around 
from the rear of the car. Malvern had left the 
headlights burning. Thoughtlessly, Wheeler 
passed in front of them. It was the great mis¬ 
take of his life, for it threw his shadow on the 
window. It caught Anne’s eye. Although un¬ 
able to speak, her fingers sank into Malvern’s 
arm, and he saw! 

Unaware that his coming had been an¬ 
nounced, Wheeler threw open the door. Mal¬ 
vern had drawn his gun, and, as the man who 
had lived on him so long stepped into the room 


GUILTY 263 

with leveled pistol, Malvern fired. He winced 
at his own shot, for he had not meant to press 
the trigger. Wonderingly he glanced at the 
gun in his hand, as if asking why it had played 
this trick on him. 

Wheeler groaned as the bullet ploughed up 
the floor. He was untouched, but sick with 
fear. If he was true to any law, it was to the 
one of self-preservation. He might never have 
thought of blackmailing Malvern, so completely 
had the idea been banished from his mind. All 
that he could see was the wavering gun point¬ 
ing at him. In a flash he was back at the bot¬ 
tom of the abysmal pit from which the human 
race has climbed. His little rat eyes glittered 
bestially. Slowly, with deliberate aim, he raised 
his gun and fired. Malvern tottered from side 
to side, his head sagging forward. Anne put 
her hand to her mouth to force back a scream 
as he pitched to the floor—dead—a bullet in 
his heart! 

A minute—years long—passed as Anne and 


264 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Wheeler surveyed each other. The Cabot 
blood, which Anne had so often scoffed at, be¬ 
gan to tell. Fear gradually slipped away from 
her. Wheeler’s spirit had long since disin¬ 
tegrated. He glanced up from the bloody thing 
upon the floor and found that he could not take 
his eyes away from hers. Paralysis of a sort 
gripped him. His jaw fell; he gun slipped from 
his fingers. He wanted to scream. His cry 
started, only to die out in his throat in a hor¬ 
rible, gurgling moan. He knew that he must 
get away. He tried to move, but his feet 
seemed fastened to the floor. He heard some 
one coming—It broke the spell that held him. 
He shook his head to clear it. A window which 
Malvern had half opened beckoned to him. 
With a wild leap he was across the room. He 
pushed the sash up, and with the agility of an 
ape leaped out into the night. 

Flight! It registered in Anne’s brain too. 
She caught the pad pad of running feet. The 
window was low. There was time yet! Catch- 


GUILTY 265 

ing her skirt up, she jumped. The ground was 
soft; she spread her arms to keep her balance., 
Breathless, she fled away. Circling the house, 
she fought her way back to the lane. The un¬ 
derbrush cut through her stockings and ripped 
her legs. Gregory came running then. She 
slunk in back of a tree and waited for him to 
pass. She ran on shortly. In half an hour she 
was on the highway. She judged that it was 
three miles to the railroad. She straightened 
her clothes and set off. Trees lined the road. 
Whenever a car approached, she left the high¬ 
way. It was a few minutes after ten when she 
reached Pawling. The last New York express 
was due in a few minutes. She paced the plat¬ 
form until it arrived. White Plains was an 
express stop; she got off there. She waited 
in the station until a train from New York 
filled the depot with returning theater-goers. 
She got into a taxi then. By midnight she was 
safe in her room at Cabot Manor. 

Ducharme reached the farmhouse but a mo- 


266 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


ment after Anne had leaped through the open 
window. He had not paused to ask himself 
what had happened. His eyes bulged as he saw 
Malvern's dead body, the lifeless fingers still 
clutching the gun with which he had shot at 
Wheeler. 

The acrid smell of burnt gunpowder filled 
the room. Ducharme's eyes took in the open 
window—the other gun. He bent and picked 
it up. It was still warm. Dazed, he knelt be¬ 
side the body and tried to catch some sign of 
lingering life. He shook his head as he drew 
his hand back. 

“Dead!" he muttered, his voice hanging on 
in the stillness. 

“Throw up your hands!” came a sharp com¬ 
mand from the door, and Gregory stalked into 
the room, his shotgun leveled at Ducharme. 

Pierre blinked his eyes as if not understand¬ 
ing. 

“Throw up your hands!” Gregory cried once 


more. 


GUILTY 


267 

Comprehension came to Ducharme. “My 
God!” he roared, “you don't think I did this?” 

“I don't know as I'm saying,” the farmer an¬ 
swered. “But it looks pretty bad for you, 
mister. Drop that gun!” 

Speechless, Ducharme let the revolver fall. 
With the toe of his shoe he slid it across the 
floor to Gregory's feet. 

Mrs. Gregory came soon after. Husband 
and wife bound Ducharme. Another hour 
brought the State Police. For once the law 
moved quickly . . . Pritchett’s evidence—Du- 
charme's threat to kill Malvern—Gregory's tale 
of the question concerning Malvern's visits to 
the farm—Ducharme kneeling, gun in hand, 
over the dead man's body! What evidence was 
there wanting? The prosecuting attorney 
smiled; it was almost too easy. 

Two months later the newspapers which had 
fairly reeked with nauseating details of the 
Malvern case—of Renee Grant and the “bird¬ 
cage”—of Gloria's mad love for her “Indian” 


268 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


guide, flamed again with the screaming head¬ 
line: “Mrs. Malvern’s North Wood’s Lover 
Found Guilty! Ducharme Must Pay the 
Penalty.” 

And Gloria, crushed—crucified—deserted by 
all save her mother, Mrs. Van, and little Abe 
Ascher, prayed that she might die. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


CHERCHEZ LA FEMME 

New York forgets quickly. Gloria had proof 
of it in the following weeks. The domestic 
affairs of a prominent banker began to engage 
the attention of the public prints, and before 
the month was over the Malvern case had been 
forgotten. In a way it made Ducharme’s fate 
seem even more cruel. 

She had been to see him repeatedly. Always 
she came away feeling that justice would have 
been served the better could they have ex¬ 
changed places. She had brought this thing 
upon him. But for her, Ducharme would be 
roaming his beloved North. 

Mrs. Van and Gloria’s mother very unwisely 
tried to fill her mind with thoughts of other 
matters—to make her see that no fault was 
hers. It not only failed of success, but made 

269 


270 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Gloria more determined than ever to continue 
her fight for Ducharme’s life. Her faith in his 
innocence had never wavered. 

Brom Jones, just arrived from abroad, came 
to see her. 

“Of course Ducharme didn’t do this thing!” 
he exclaimed vehemently. “I saw enough of 
him up north to wager my life that he is inno¬ 
cent. We’ve got to do something. What about 
John Cabot ? Have you seen him ? He’s over 
at Cabot Manor. Laddie’s dangerously sick— 
influenza, or something. John will have to help 
us.” 

The Governor had written Gloria on the oc¬ 
casion of Malvern’s funeral. It was a fine, 
friendly letter. But how could he help her? 
She was so firmly convinced that Pierre would 
be freed that she had no thought of asking for 
a pardon for him. She said as much to Brom. 

“I know, Gloria,” he answered, “but time’s 
the most important thing in the world to us 
right now. If we can get time enough—a stay 


CHERCHEZ LA FEMME 271 

of three months, or so—we can sift the evi¬ 
dence over and over. I’ll speak to John if you 
care to have me.” 

“Not yet, Brom,” Gloria murmured.. “I 
dread asking him.” 

“I can’t understand why.” 

‘Well, you know Jim had a great deal to do 
with electing him.” 

“No reason at all!” Brom declared. “Don’t 
feel like that. Where’s Anne?” 

“California. Mrs. Van tells me she left on a 
moment’s notice.” 

Brom’s lips curled contemptuously. “Run¬ 
ning away when she might have stayed to buck 
you up, eh? I can’t understand some people. 
Friends? Humph! But, no matter. I believe 
we can count on John if the time grows short. 
Hasn’t anything turned up since the trial?” 

“Nothing of any moment. Gregory brought 
me a shoe buckle the other day. He had been 
burning off the underbrush when he chanced 
to see it.” 


272 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

“A man's shoe?” 

“No—no. The kind of buckle women wear 
on dress pumps—you know the kind I mean. 
I didn’t think anything of it. It might have 
lain there for years.” 

In response to Brom’s request, she showed 
him the buckle. 

“It’s smart, isn’t it?” he exclaimed. “Must 
have cost a penny or two. It’s not the sort of 
thing you’d expect to find a country girl wear¬ 
ing. It looks like the Avenue or the Rue de la 
Paix to me. Do the police know about it?” 

“Oh, the police!” Gloria murmured. “Please, 
Brom!” 

“Well, don’t say anything then. I think it’s 
a very, very important bit of evidence. As for 
its having been there for years—why, I swear 
I’ve seen women wearing that very type of 
buckle in Paris within the last month. As a 
matter of fact, aren’t New Yorkers wearing 
them this fall?” 

“Some, perhaps. I didn't notice, Brom. It 


CHERCHEZ LA FEMME 273 

does fit in with Pierre’s story—he has always 
claimed that Jim had a woman in his car that 
night.” 

She looked at Brom for confirmation. 

“True!” he declared. “Get the old courage 
back, Gloria. Something like this will solve the 
mystery. By the way, were you satisfied with 
the alibi Renee Grant offered at the trial ? The 
Paris edition of the Times printed only a part 
of the testimony.” 

“Absolutely, Brom,” Gloria answered, won¬ 
dering why he asked. “She was dancing in 
New York at the time of the shooting. The 
owner of the cafe and any number of patrons 
swore to it. Do you suspect her?” 

“Not after what you just told me. But I had 
another reason for asking. Renee Grant owes 
almost everything she has to Jim. It is not rea¬ 
sonable to suppose that another woman could 
have come into his life without her endeavoring 
to find out everything she could about her. Do 
you follow me, Gloria?” 


274 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

“Why—why, yes. You mean that if there 
was a woman in the case—and it was not Renee 
Grant—she, at least, knows who that woman 
is.” 

“Exactly! Kiraldy should not have over¬ 
looked that. He is a clever and excellent attor¬ 
ney, but I do not believe that he helped Du- 
charme’s case any by bullying this Miss Grant. 
Between Kiraldy and the press she was under 
fire from the first day to the last. And more 
for what she had been to Jim rather than for 
an actual participation in the event which led 
to his death. Naturally, she refused to talk. 
Properly handled, she might have proven a 
good witness. Why don’t you have a talk with 
her?” 

“I have been intending to see her—not with 
any thought of seeking information. I feel 
that some arrangement should be made for her 
out of the money Jim left. I want none of it.” 
Brom started to protest. “No,” Gloria insisted, 
“I couldn’t touch it, Brom. I have made some 


CHERCHEZ LA FEMME 275 

tentative plans for disposing of it. They in¬ 
clude Miss Grant.” 

“That’s—very generous of you,” Brom ad¬ 
mitted grudgingly. “Not that I approve of it. 
I think it’s quixotic. However, I would make 
it a point to see Miss Grant.” 

Gloria promised to do so. Brom had proven 
a godsend. Gloria’s face seemed less white as 
she walked to the door with him. 

“How does Pierre take it?” he asked as he 
was leaving. 

“He’s very brave. But you can imagine what 
prison must mean to him. His eyes haunt me.” 

“I shall go to see him this Thursday. And 
remember, Gloria, everything is not hopeless.” 
He wrung her hand heartily. “See you to¬ 
morrow for a minute,” he called back as he ran 
down the steps* 


CHAPTER XXXIV 

GLORIA MEETS RENEE 

During the trial and the days following it, 

Renee took what comfort she could from the 

fact that Wheeler had stepped out of her life. 

He had written her from Baltimore the day 

following Ducharme’s arrest. It was the first 

word from him in several weeks. He wrote 

that he had made a big “stake”; that he was 

leaving for Mexico—Juarez and then the Tia 

Juana meeting. She did not answer his letter. 

He had not written again. A day or two after 

receiving word from him she had been caught 

in a vortex of publicity whose widening circle 

must have reached him however far away he 

might be. She took her own answer from his 

continued silence, read into it the unforgivable 

offence, saw him for the miserable coward he 

was. Her word for it was “yellow.” A retro- 
276 


GLORIA MEETS RENEE 277 

spection convinced her that he had always been 
that—“yellow.” She began to take a savage 
joy in the knowledge that he was out of her life 
forever. 

Kiraldy, Ducharme’s attorney, had begun his 
methodical torturing, painting her as a wanton 
—a lecherous beast who had snared Malvern 
with her wiles. When he had finished she was 
undressed, naked in the eyes of the world. Pub¬ 
lic opinion had turned against her. She could 
feel it from day to day. Publicity had always 
been the genii who carried the key to success; 
but such publicity as became hers was more 
than even the Golden Canary could abide. 

She had not worked since that time. Bitter, 
hating the world in general, and the press and 
Kiraldy in particular, she shut herself in her 
hotel and refused to be seen or interviewed. 
Gloria’s note, asking to see her, promptly found 
its way into the fire even though its tone was 
kindly. 

“She can’t come here to pity me,” she mut- 


278 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

tered aloud. “I’ll not be the object of another 
moral lesson.” 

Her better judgment prevailed finally. 
Surely Mrs. Malvern had suffered even more 
than she. That evening she sent word that she 
would see Gloria the following afternoon. 

Renee found it hard to compose herself as 
the time for Mrs. Malvern’s visit arrived, and 
yet, as Gloria entered her suite, Renee was the 
more at ease of the two. She saw very quickly 
that Mrs. Malvern had not come to preach. In 
fact, Gloria won her in the first few minutes. 
Neither in word nor tone was there anything in 
what Mrs. Malvern said to suggest the patro¬ 
nizing which Renee had expected, but she was 
amazed at what she suggested. 

“Why—I had no thought of such a thing! 
I’m not the cold-blooded, money-grabbing per¬ 
son the world believes I am.” 

“I don’t believe you are, either,” said Gloria. 
“I know just how hard it has been for you these 
past weeks. I have suffered, too; life is still a 


GLORIA MEETS RENEE 279 

nightmare to me. I have been misrepresented, 
misquoted, reviled, glorified; it has been a ter¬ 
rible experience. I am quite willing to believe 
that you fared no better. Do not misunder¬ 
stand me about the money; I feel that it is due 
you, not a gift from me. It will be a month or 
two before the estate can be touched. In the 
meantime, I will gladly assist you if you are 
short of funds.” 

Renee was left speechless. 

“I—you—you overwhelm me,” she mur¬ 
mured at last. “I hardly know how to express 
what I feel, Mrs. Malvern. Naturally, I ex¬ 
pected to find you very bitter toward me.” 

“No,” Gloria murmured musingly, “I con¬ 
quered that feeling long ago. It was my hus¬ 
band who was unfair to me, not you.” 

Renee realized just how wide the gulf was 
that separated her from Gloria, but she could 
not help saying: 

“Perhaps it would surprise you, Mrs. Mal¬ 
vern, to know that I saw your husband but twice 


280 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


after he married you—one night soon after I 
came back from Egypt and that day at the 
Waldorf, and that meeting was accidentaL ,, 

The statement drew Gloria to her feet. 

“Why—I do find it hard to believe/’ she said 
nervously. “It is, indeed, a very, very great 
surprise to me.” 

“It is the truth,” Renee asserted. “Mr. 
Kiraldy would have found it out, too, if he had 
let me talk instead of bullying me with his 
questions.” 

“You mean that another woman had come 
into my husband’s life?” Gloria asked, a feeling 
of dizziness sweeping over her. 

Renee glanced at her shrewdly. “Surely,” 
said she, “you are not putting that as a question. 
I thought you were being frank with me.” 

“I hardly understand you,” declared Gloria. 
“There is no reason why I should be other than 
frank with you.” 

“But certainly you know that your husband 
was carrying on a flirtation with a woman in 


GLORIA MEETS RENEE 281 


your own set—one of your very good friends, 
for that matter. Why, during the trial I be¬ 
lieved that you and Mr. Ducharme were being 
painfully careful to keep her name out of it. I 
don't wish to pose or seem to claim any virtue 
that is not mine, but if I said nothing it was 
only because I was following what I thought 
was the example you had set. It seemed cruel 
to ruin another reputation." 

Aghast, Gloria caught the back of a chair for 
support. 

“You have been mistaken," she cried. 
“Nothing could be farther from the truth. Do 
you think I would have hesitated over a reputa¬ 
tion, knowing that his life was at stake? My 
dear girl, you don't know what you have done. 
Who is the woman? I can't begin to tell you 
how important it is to me." 

Renee could not believe her ears. It was 
incredible! “I can't believe that you don't 
know," she declared. “You have been blind, 
Mrs. Malvern." Gloria's white face alarmed 


282 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


her. “I warn you that it is going to come as 
a shock. It’s—it’s Anne Cabot!” 

“Anne Cabot!” 

Faint, Gloria dropped into a chair. A noise, 
as of thunder, rolled in her ears. Eyes closed, 
her brain reeling, she fought the nausea creep¬ 
ing over her. Anne Cabot! Acts, which she 
had not questioned, translated themselves into 
matters of dreadful moment. Anne’s running 
away—her conduct at Bois Blanc—and the 
buckle! It was the sort of thing Anne went in 
for! Had she killed Jim? 

Gloria shuddered at the thought; it was too 
ghastly, too terrible. . . . Anne! She felt that 
she must leave at once or not be able to go. She 
wanted to be alone—outside—home; anywhere 
but in this stifling room. Weak, dazed, unable 
as yet to comprehend what all this meant to 
Pierre, she reached her car. 

From her window Renee watched the car 
move away. 

“Game to the last,” she murmured eloquently. 


CHAPTER XXXV 


TO SAVE A LIFE 

Brom came on Friday, anxious to know if any¬ 
thing had developed from Gloria’s visit with 
Renee. Gloria had been in a quandary ever 
since coming home; feeling at times, that she 
could not say anything to Brom until she had 
confirmed what Renee had said. Common 
sense warned her, however, that each day was 
precious, and that to keep the matter from 
Brom would be to jeopardize Pierre’s life. 

Brom took the news coldly. In some way it 
did not come as a surprise to him. He won¬ 
dered if an incident or two at Bois Blanc had 
prepared him for it. 

“It’s going to be a terrible blow to John,” he 
said. “He doesn’t deserve it.” 

“You do not doubt that it is true, then?” 
Gloria asked. 

283 


284 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

“I—I wish I had, Gloria. Still, we can’t 
think of John. And Anne doesn’t concern me. 
God! Think of it—running away and leaving 
Ducharme to die!” 

He got up and took a turn around the room, 
muttering to himself. 

“Well, I suppose she figured it was her life 
or his.” 

“I doubt it!” Brom exclaimed earnestly. “I 
can’t believe it! Anne did not shoot Jim; she 
isn’t up to it; she’s dangerous only in a small 
way; her cynical, calculating type never achieve 
murder. To steal your husband—to make love 
to him beneath your roof—well, Anne could do 
that; but murder—no! Don’t think that we’ve 
solved this mystery yet; this is but the begin¬ 
ning. Anne got over her head some way; she 
knows what happened—saw it with her own 
eyes, perhaps. She was thinking only of her 
reputation in keeping still. I had a long talk 
with Pierre yesterday; he sticks to his story to 
the dot. Absolutely positive that he saw a man 


TO SAVE A LIFE 


285 

enter the house after the light appeared in the 
window. I suggested that it might have been 
Jim, but he swears the man was much too short 
for Jim. I don’t know why it is, but even you 
and I seem to feel that we must prove Pierre’s 
story before we can accept it. Bit by bit, we 
are doing it; but from now on I am going to 
base every conclusion I make on his statement.” 

“Do I seem to waver in my faith in Pierre?” 
asked Gloria, not sure whether she should feel 
hurt or not. 

“Of course not!” Brom exclaimed. “I didn’t 
mean to insinuate that. But don’t let us waste 
any time in pursuing clues that do not seem to 
fit in with what he claims happened. And we 
must prove that Anne was at the farm that 
night. It’s not going to be an easy task.” 

Brom smoked in silence for a minute. 

“Gloria,” he exclaimed suddenly, “are you 
willing to do whatever I suggest concerning 
Anne?” 

The question startled Gloria. 


286 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


“Why, yes,” she said after a moment. “I 
have great respect for your judgment, Brom.” 

“You may find the task Pm going to set you 
more than you have bargained for,” said he. 
“But there is not any other way out of it, 
Gloria; you’ve got to go to Cabot Manor.” 

“Yes?” she urged. 

“John is having a desperate time getting 
nurses. He told me the other evening that he 
had telephoned as far north as Albany before 
he could find one to relieve the girl who had 
been up day and night with Laddie for days on 
end. Dr. Leavitt says there are hundreds of 
cases of influenza in Westchester. Laddie is 
out of danger now. Still, John would be glad 
to have your help;*with a trained nurse to in¬ 
struct you, you can do all that a practical nurse 
could accomplish.” 

“It’s not a very enviable role, is It?” asked 
Gloria. 

“No, it’s not. And yet, I believe you would 
be doing John a kindness. If we can make 


TO SAVE A LIFE 


287 

Anne talk, without resorting to the police, we 
can avoid some of the publicity that would be 
inevitable otherwise. I don't know what you 
will find there; certainly the end justifies any 
means. You've never met John, have you?" 

Gloria signified that she had not. 

“Well, that's very fortunate for us, because 
you are not going to Cabot Manor as Mrs. Mal¬ 
vern. When I speak to John I will tell him that 
my doctor recommended you to me. We'll have 
to provide a name for you. How about Saun¬ 
ders?—Miss Saunders; it sounds nursey to 
me. 

“But is all this deception necessary? I hate 
the part, Brom. Besides, I called on Mrs. 
Cabot once." 

“She'll not recognize you; you’ll arrive in a 
nurse's uniform. As for John, he would never 
consent to the arrangement if I were to men¬ 
tion your name. He would feel indebted to you 
if he accepted your ofifer; and that it was blit 
the prelude to your asking him for a pardon 


288 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 


for Pierre. He is not a politician; but even so, 
he would not permit himself to be compromised. 
What do you say, Gloria ? Shall I call him ?” 

Gloria nodded bravely. “Yes, Til go,” said 
she. “It may mean Pierre’s life; what it costs 
me must not matter.” 


CHAPTER XXXVI 


AT CABOT MANOR 

Gloria had cause almost immediately to con¬ 
gratulate herself for having followed Brom’s 
advice. John and his mother had accepted her 
without question. In fact, Miss Reynolds, the 
nurse in charge, was the only one to ask ques¬ 
tions which she found hard to answer—semi- 
professional ones regarding training schools 
and professional acquaintances. Gloria saved 
helself by saying that she had only lately come 
East. It followed as a matter of course that 
she and Miss Reynolds should be together, more 
or less, day and night. In the early days of 
Laddie’s illness the great room adjoining his 
had been given his nurse with the thought of 
saving as many steps as possible. Gloria shared 
this room with Miss Reynolds. The windows 

had been hastily shorn of their hangings, 
289 


290 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

pictures removed from the walls and such per¬ 
sonal touches as give a room distinction carried 
away to other parts of the house. And yet the 
big, airy chamber retained an air of grandeur. 
But for all that Gloria was totally unprepared 
for Irish Norah’s startling statement that it 
was Anne’s room. 

A feverish desire to explore the great closets 
seized Gloria; but not until the third evening 
did an opportunity present itself. Laddie was 
so much better that Miss Reynolds had deemed 
it safe to leave him in Gloria’s care for a few 
hours. The boy fell asleep soon after they left. 
John or Mrs. Cabot might come in at any mo¬ 
ment; but Gloria decided to risk their sur¬ 
prising her, and with rapidly beating heart she 
threw open a closet door. 

A jumble of hats and dresses met her eye. 
Bric-a-brac had been piled in one corner—a 
silver dressing set and such other articles as 
perhaps Norah had been instructed to remove 
from the room. A great array of pumps and 


AT CABOT MANOR 


291 

shoes littered the floor. One by one, Gloria 
examined them, but not a pair gave any evi¬ 
dence of having been pierced with a buckle pin 
of any kind. 

Three or four hat boxes leaned crazily upon 
the shelf above her head. Getting up on a chair, 
Gloria ran her hands through them. A cold 
shiver ran down her spine as her fingers closed 
upon a badly scuffed pair of brown silk pumps. 
With nerves taut she got down from the chair 
and closed the closet door. The pumps burned 
her fingers as she carried them to the dresser 
to examine them in the light of the lamp which 
stood upon it. 

A glance showed her the blackened holes 
worn shiny from the play of the buckles which 
had once adorned the slippers. Turning one 
so that the sheen of the silk caught the light- 
rays, she made out the outline of a buckle— 
an unfaded spot dark against the rest of the 
pump. 

The buckle which Gregory had found had 


292 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

been imprinted in Gloria’s mind so vividly that 
she mentally fitted it to the slipper in her hand 
and found that in each twist and curve it exactly 
matched the unfaded spot. To be certain she 
got the buckle from her purse and attached it 
to the pump; it ended any doubt she had left; 
the buckle was Anne’s! 

Gloria wanted to get in touch with Brom at 
once, but she dared not telephone from the 
Manor. Laddie stirred uneasily and she went 
in and covered him. She was grateful for the 
coolness of the room. The low windows over¬ 
looked a lily pond—weed-clogged now, but still 
reminiscent of departed glories beneath the 
young December moon. Gloria sat staring at 
it, lost in thought, wondering where in all the 
big house Anne had hidden the missing buckle. 
The old pond fascinated Gloria. 

John came in as she sat there. As she talked 
with him an explanation of the attraction the 
pond held for her flashed in her mind. No 
sooner was he gone than she ran to the win- 


AT CABOT MANOR 


293 

dow. Seizing an empty bottle, she tossed it 
into the air. A moment later it sank beneath 
the oily surface of the pond with a gurgling 
sound. Had Anne Cabot stood in her window 
and tossed the incriminating buckle into the 
pond as she had just now tossed the empty 
bottle ? Where in Cabot Manor could she have 
found a better hiding place? 

Miss Reynolds returned before eleven. 
Gloria tried to sleep, but through her dreams 
there floated a picture of the green, moss-green 
bottom of the old pond. She was still in bed 
when Norah came in the following morning. 

“I didn’t mane to be afther dishturbing you, 
miss,” said she. “Go on and have your beauty 
sleep; although you have small need of one, 
what with all the looks the good God gave ye. 
I swear as ye lie there ye look for all the world 
like the picthure paper likenesses of Mrs. Jim 
Malvern; that ye do! A great lady she is, too, 
says I who have hooked and buttoned a few as 
thought they wuz ladies.” 


294 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Gloria forced a smile to her lips as Norah 
stood shaking her head as if inviting her to 
deny that Mrs. Malvern was “a great lady.” 

“You but echo my own opinion of her,” 
Gloria answered dryly. “You’ll come back in 
half an hour, Norah?” 

“Shure I’ll come back,” Norah answered as 
she gathered up her brooms. No one had fol¬ 
lowed the Malvern case with greater assiduity 
than Norah. In a large way, she took her 
romance from the illustrated papers. “It must 
be wonderful to be loved by wan of thim French 
guides,” she said wistfully. “I’ve been made 
love to by all kinds, but never the French. 
Shure, ye don’t think the Frenchman killed Jim 
Malvern, do ye, miss?” 

Gloria winced. How many other maids and 
cooks were discussing her ? 

“Please, Norah!” she said sharply. “Do run 
along.” 

“Now I’ve annoyed ye, haven’t I?” Norah 
exclaimed. “Bad luck to me for it. But ye 


AT CABOT MANOR 


295 

know this James Malvern wa’n’t no stranger to 
me. Many the time he’s been here to see Mister 
John in the ould days. Well, I had the night of 
his murther marked in me moind; faith and I 
little thought I’d be here the following day tak¬ 
ing orders from her royal ’ighness. There! 
Ye see me tongue running away again. I’ll 
have yer breakfast sint up.” 

But Gloria no longer wished her to leave. 

“And who might her royal highness be?” 
Gloria asked, to detain her. 

Norah made a wry face. 

“Miss Anne I mane. Oh, a great lady she is 
—or so she thinks, with her talk of Paree this 
and Paree that. To hear her ye’d think Noo 
Yorruk was jist wan of these sooburban addi¬ 
tions. She’s not like the ould mother of Mister 
John; he’s a foine man, is Mister John, never a 
cross worrud.” 

“Perhaps you do not try to understand her,” 
Gloria suggested, wondering how she could 
swing the conversation to the happenings of 


296 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

the night which Norah had said she remem¬ 
bered so well. 

“Understhand her? That’s all I tried to do 
until the night poor Mister Malvern was killed. 
Mister John’s orders is for us to be in by mid¬ 
night. Me gintleman friend, Mister Jerry 
O’Donnell, had taken me to the movies; it was 
only a quarter of the hour as we came up the 
path. No more had we turned in thin a taxi 
comes chugging up the drive, and Miss Anne 
steps out. She gives me an awful look, miss, 
and whin I start upsthairs, she calls me in. I 
thought I was in for it; she only says, 'Take 
these downstairs and burn them.’ And she 
hands me a pair of stockings. Brown silk they 
wuz, fine as a spider’s web; but ripped and torn 
to make me heart bleed. Been playing golf 
she’d been. Foine clothes for golf, thinks I to 
meself; wading through briars and stickers and 
with such stuff and Mister John so careful of 
the pennies. 

"But I took them down to the kitchen fire. 


AT CABOT MANOR 297 

It was a shame to burn thim, I thought, whin I 
could fix thim fer meself. I didn’t expect she’d 
be waiting for me, but she wuz, and she saw me 
try to hide thim. I thought she’d go mad. 
Never have I been so talked to like that before. 
But for Mister John I’d never have marched 
down thim stairs again that night.” 

Norah caught a glimpse of Gloria’s face; and 
she dropped her broom precipitately. 

“Here I stand jabbering,” she accused her¬ 
self, “and you famished for a bite to eat. I’ll 
bring it to ye meself.” 

Gloria drew a deep breath into her lungs as 
the door closed. Was any further evidence 
necessary? In her mind’s eye she could see 
Anne fighting her way through the underbrush, 
the mad haste to get home, her dismay at find¬ 
ing Norah there to see her alight from some 
rattle-trap taxi, then her terror at finding the 
buckle gone, the urge to get rid of its mate, to 
destroy the torn stockings! What alibi could 
she offer against this chain of facts? 


CHAPTER XXXVII 


THE TRUTH AT LAST 

Gloria dressed hurriedly, her train of thought 
broken, chaotic. Before she had finished, 
Norah returned, the breakfast tray held at a 
perilous angle, her whole demeanor announcipg 
her excitement. 

“She’s downstairs!” she whispered with the 
air of one imparting a great surprise. “Miss 
Anne—and come without a word of warning,, 
too. And mad she is to know that Mister John 
took the liberty of giving her room to you and 
Miss Reynolds.” 

Gloria felt her knees go weak. Her eyes 
sought the windows; but they were too high; 
escape did not lie in that direction. She pushed 
Norah aside as she caught up her coat and ran 
to the door, her one thought to flee, to get away 
from Cabot Manor before Anne should con- 

298 


THE TRUTH AT LAST 299 

front her. There was something tigerish about 
her movements. Norah stared at her open- 
mouthed. But even as Gloria put her hand on 
the knob her ears caught the sound of voices on 
the stairs—voices which she recognized as 
John’s and Anne’s. 

She groaned as she realized that she was 
trapped. Perhaps they would go in to see 
Laddie. Gloria told herself she would open the 
door and dash down the stairs if they should. 

Norah had found her tongue. “What is it, 
Miss ?” she questioned kindly. 

“Nothing—nothing, Norah,” Gloria an¬ 
swered as she leaned panting against the door. 
She heard John’s knock; Miss Reynolds an¬ 
swered it; Laddie was sleeping. The nurse was 
presented to Anne. They spoke in half whis¬ 
pers. Gloria stiffened as she heard John apolo¬ 
gize for having to ask Miss Reynolds to use 
another room; he would speak to Miss Saunders 
too. She was having breakfast; they’d just 
look in for a moment. 


300 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

A few seconds would bring them to her door. 
The warning was brief, and yet it was long 
enough to permit Gloria to get control of her¬ 
self. Leaving the door, she walked back to the 
table on which Norah had spread her breakfast. 
The steadiness of her step surprised her; she 
was even conscious of feeling annoyed with 
herself for her confusion of a moment ago. 
Very courageously she waited for Anne and 
John to enter; she had accomplished her pur¬ 
pose in coming to Cabot Manor—had made a 
new trial certain for Pierre. Whatever hap¬ 
pened in the next few minutes could not dim the 
importance of that! 

Norah glanced at her as John knocked. “Ad¬ 
mit them/’ she said calmly. 

"May we come in?” John said. 

"Certainly,” Gloria murmured, getting to her 
feet. 

He turned to his sister at that. "Anne,” 
said he, "this is Miss Saunders. She has been 



THE TRUTH AT LAST 301 

He did not finish, for Anne’s startled excla¬ 
mation came without warning. 

“Gloria Malvern!” There was no mistaking 
the note of alarm in Anne’s voice. 

Bewildered, John glanced from her to Gloria. 
His voice failed him for a moment. 

“Gloria Malvern?” he queried. “Why, I 
don’t think I understand. This is Miss Saun¬ 
ders, Anne.” 

“Saunders? Are you blind, John?” she de¬ 
manded. “You’ve been fooled!” She threw 
off John’s hand and stepped toward Gloria. 
“You came here to spy on me, didn’t you?” she 
cried. “It was clever of you to gain admission 
here as a nurse. Surely, you are not brazen 
enough to deny your identity to me!” 

“Anne!” John cried sternly, before Gloria 
could answer. His warning was not without 
effect on Anne, for her eyes dropped as her 
brother searched them for some answer to her 
strange conduct. Turning to Gloria he asked: 
“Are you Mrs. Malvern?” 


302 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Gloria nodded. “I—I am Mrs. Malvern.” 

“O, holy mither of God,” Norah gasped as 
John and Gloria gazed at each other without 
flinching. It was John who turned away. 

“Anne,” said he, “why should Mrs. Malvern 
come here to spy on you? What is back of 
this?” His deep voice quavered with sup¬ 
pressed emotion. 

“Perhaps—perhaps I overstated myself,” 
Anne replied nervously, realizing how incau¬ 
tious she had been. “Perhaps she thought to 
enlist your support for a pardon for Du- 
charme.” 

“I did not come here for a pardon,” Gloria 
declared coldly in answer to John's inquiring 
glance. “I do not think that Anne used the 
wrong word; I did come here to spy oil her, as 
she put it. I realize that an explanation is due 
you. It might better come from Anne, but if 
she will not speak, I shall.” 

“You choose to be melodramatic,” Anne 
laughed sarcastically. “I am not afraid of any- 


THE TRUTH AT LAST 303 

thing you may have discovered about me. If 
you insist in further discrediting yourself by 
attacking me, I’ll make no effort to stop you; 
anything you say will be taken for what it is 
worth. I suppose we might continue this scene 
without Norah.” 

John agreed, but Gloria said very pointedly. 

“I think it will be better if Norah remains; 
you may find her very necessary, Anne. Her 
sense of discretion is going to become very im¬ 
portant to you ... I believe you understand 
me.” 

Anne threw up her head angrily. “A maid’s 
gossip!” she cried scornfully, not failing to 
grasp the intimation in Gloria’s words. “Go 
on with your absurd theatricalisms,” she 
snapped. “You cannot leave too soon.” 

Gloria gave no sign that she had heard. 
Turning to John she said: 

“It is not easy for me to tell what I feel you 
deserve to know; and yet it may prove itself a 
kindness. I had a very definite purpose in 


3 04 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

coming here; and I have accomplished it. I 
have proved beyond question that Anne knows 
who killed Jim.” 

“What!” The exclamation snapped from 
John's lips like the crack of a whip. Gloria saw 
the perspiration break on his forehead. She 
could hear Nor ah crying. Turning her head 
again, she leveled her eyes at Anne. Seconds 
slipped by as they stared at each other in wooden 
silence. 

John followed this silent play of eyes. As 
he watched, he saw his sister tremble as she 
strove to throw off the terror that was clutch¬ 
ing at her. Gloria appeared to grow calmer, 
her self-possession growing with each passing 
second. Icy fingers gripped John’s heart. 
Shrewd lawyer that he was, he could not help 
but see in which direction the scales were 
leaning. 

And, indeed, Gloria had gained complete 
mastery of herself. Abe Ascher would have 
pronounced her supreme as she faced Anne. 


THE TRUTH AT LAST 305 

As they fenced with their eyes, fact and fancy 
welded themselves into the chain of evidence 
with which she hoped to bring Anne to her 
knees. 

“What is your answer, Anne?” John urged 
bravely. 

“Answer?” Anne echoed. “Is an answer 
necessary to such a preposterous lie p ” 

“Perhaps you can explain how this buckle 
came to be found beneath the open window at 
Malvern Farm,” said Gloria. “Mr. Gregory 
picked it up.” 

Anne winced as Gloria offered the buckle for 
her inspection. 

“IPs not mine!” she cried. “I never saw it 
before.” 

“And yet it fits the unfaded spot on this 
pump which I found in your closet,” Gloria 
went on, taking the brown silk slipper from a 
dresser-drawer. “This pump was made in Paris 
—Boutillier et Cie, 71 Rue de la Paix.” Gloria 
paused, and turning to Norah she said: “Does 


3 o6 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

the color of this pump match the torn stockings 
which Miss Cabot had you burn for her on the 
night Mr. Malvern was killed ?” 

Sobbing, Norah shuffled forward and gazed 
at the slipper. 

“Y-y-y-yis, ma’am,” she mumbled, “it’s the 
same.” 

John groaned as Norah stood there help¬ 
lessly. 

'‘Norah remembers the night,” Gloria in¬ 
sisted, “because Mr.—er—Jerry O’Donnell had 
taken her to the movies that evening. She 
reached the Manor just as Anne alighted from 
a White Plains taxi. There is an express from 
Pawling at ten forty-two which arrives in 
White Plains about an hour later. The night 
agent there would remember the lady who pur¬ 
chased a ticket from him on the particular night 
—it was the only one he sold.” 

Gloria was offering as facts matters which 
had yet to be established, but the effect on Anne 
was immediate. 


THE TRUTH AT LAST 


307 

“Lies! Lies!” she cried. “John! John! 
Stop her!” 

Anne's face was white, ghastly; she tore at 
her dress. 

“The police will have to-” 

“The police!” It was a scream, wild, terror¬ 
laden. Anne's eyes closed, she put out her 
hands as if to steady herself. John caught her 
as she tottered. Tenderly he lifted her and 
carried her to the bed, an expression of in¬ 
effable sadness in his eyes. 

“What a horrible mistake,” he groaned. 
“Anne, Anne!” Raising his eyes to Norah he 
said: “Go to my study and wait until I come.” 

When she had gone he turned to Gloria. 
“Have you communicated with the police?” he 
asked miserably. Gloria shook her head. 
“Please don't,” he went on. “Let me save her 
if I can. Will you promise me?” 

Gloria nodded again, too full for words. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 


ANNE CONFESSES 

John Cabot’s head sagged as he stood beside 
the bed waiting for Anne to regain conscious¬ 
ness, but even at such a moment his thought 
was not of himself. 

“Mrs. Malvern,” he whispered, “we must 
keep any word of this from my mother. I 
don’t believe she could weather such a blow. 
Please don’t think there is any thought of my¬ 
self in what I’m asking. My career means a 
great deal to me, but less—far less—than the 
good name of my family and the happiness of 
my mother.’ , 

“I do not doubt you,” Gloria said softly. “I 
did not come here for revenge—Anne need not 
fear that. But she can help me. . . . She 
knows who shot Jim. Pierre Ducharme would 

308 


ANNE CONFESSES 309 

not have spent a day in jail if Anne had told 
the truth ... You say you are not thinking of 
yourself. Well—I, too, can be unselfish. I 
have suffered, you will admit . . . but I am 
willing—very willing—to forget that. I insist 
on knowing the truth. Anne can save Pierre, 
and that’s the price I ask for my silence.” 

“It is little enough to ask,” John replied care¬ 
fully. “I—assure you Anne will do all she can 
to help. By the way, Mrs. Malvern, you never 
asked me to pardon Ducharme. Under the cir¬ 
cumstances—my debt to Jim—it would have 
been hard for me to have refused. I—want to 
thank you for your consideration. But I have 
been asked to pardon him—letters, telegrams, 
telephone calls. ...” 

“From some one I know?” 

“From Anne. I should have suspected the 
truth. I could not understand her mad insis¬ 
tence.” 

“That makes it easier for me to forgive her,” 
Gloria murmured kindly. 


3io PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

Anne's hands fluttered to her face. The next 
moment she opened her eyes and gazed up at 
them. 

“Are you all right, Anne?" John asked. A 
movement of the eyes reassured him. “Mrs. 
Malvern has promised not to inform the police." 
Anne was past any further denial. “Why 
didn't you confide in me?" he murmured. 

“I wanted to, John, but I was afraid. You 
must have thought me mad when I began call¬ 
ing you long distance; I couldn’t help it—I 
couldn't stay away ... I know what a rotter 
you think I am." 

Her voice trailed off into a whisper. 

“I—I tried to fight this thing, John," she 
went on brokenly. “I wasn't in love with Jim. 
The money—I guess it was the money that 
blinded me." 

Bit by bit John drew from her the story of 
the affair with Malvern, of his death, and her 
mad flight back to the Manor. 

“I didn't realize that I'd lost the buckle until 


ANNE CONFESSES 


3ii 

I got up here. I threw the other one into the 
pond. I was afraid to throw the pumps—afraid 
they wouldn’t sink.” 

Gloria was crying softly to herself. Anne 
looked at her beseechingly. “Gloria, don’t— 
you are killing me . . . Poor Ducharme—I 
couldn’t stay away—I had to come back. I 
could see his eyes peering at me wherever I 
turned—accusing . . . Oh, God, I have suf¬ 
fered, Gloria.” 

She grew a bit hysterical as she went on. 

“I’ll go to that terrible prison and take his 
place,” she exclaimed. “I deserve it—I deserve 
it, John!” 

Gloria was touched. “Please, Anne,” she 
begged, “don’t go on this way. There is still 
time to do the right thing.” 

“Time?” Anne laughed bitterly. “Can any¬ 
thing I do ever make me right with myself 
again?” 

“You’re beside yourself, now,” John argued. 
“We must do everything we can to help Du- 


312 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

charme. . . .You know who killed Jim, don’t 
you, Anne?” 

“It happened right before my eyes!” 

“And the man’s name?” 

“I don’t know; he was a stranger.” 

“But you would recognize the man?” John 
interrupted. 

“John, I’ll never forget his face as he stood 
there in the doorway. He’d been following me 
for a week.” 

“Blackmail,” he muttered. “Where did you 
first notice him?” 

“At the station—and at the garage. Always 
at the garage.” 

And so the long hunt for Wheeler Johnson 
began. But justice was to be cheated, for, 
when the authorities closed in on him, they 
found they were too late; Wheeler had paid the 
price for taking a dark-eyed chola’s smile too 
seriously. 


CHAPTER XXXIX 

“i HAVE DUCHARME!” 

Once again the newspapers buzzed with the 
Malvern case. By the narrowest of margins 
the Cabot name escaped the searchlights of pub¬ 
licity. From the district attorney’s office came 
the startling news that Ducharme was innocent, 
that the police hoped to arrest the murderer in 
a day or two— 

Renee Grant was caught in the undertow 

once more—what did she know about Wheeler 

Johnson?—and Renee foresaw the end. 

In the meantime, Pierre walked forth a free 

man. Brom was there to meet him. He saw 

the big man’s face fall at finding him alone. 

“I advised her not to come, Pierre,” said he. 

“I have a letter for you. You are not to open 

it until you are on your way north again. Her 

doctors have advised her to go abroad—Swit- 
313 


3 i4 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

zerland. She’s tired, worn out. It’s going to 
take a long rest to bring back the color to her 
cheeks. But life doesn’t end here; in fact, it 
hasn’t begun for the two of you ... You 
wouldn’t want it to begin here.” 

“You are right, my friend—and friend you 
are,” Pierre exclaimed, and he gripped Brom’s 
hand until Brom cried stop. 

Not until his train pulled out of Saranac for 
the north did Ducharme open Gloria’s letter. 
It said: 

Pierre, dear: 

I could not come to-day. I could not bear to say 
good-bye against such a background. Go north, 
Pierre; forget this terrible experience even as I shall 
try to forget it. 

I am going abroad. Just where, or for how long, 
I cannot say. I have no plans, want none, for the 
matter of that—just rest and forgetfulness. 

But always, wherever I am, I shall tell myself 
that I have Ducharme; that somewhere he is waiting 
for me; that some day I must go to him. 

G.- 



“I HAVE DUCHARME!” 315 

Then, as ever afterward, Ducharme drew 
courage from that letter. In the long months 
that followed he came to lean on it for support 
and faith when it seemed that Gloria had gone 
from his life forever. 

His arrival at Chicoutimi was not un¬ 
heralded. Felix and Amiel were there to meet 
him, as were a hundred others. His exonera¬ 
tion had been complete, and his people turned 
to him as they never had in the old days. Per¬ 
haps it was that they saw in his vindication a 
vindication of their race. Throughout the 
long winter Pierre's name clung to men's lips 
and when the elections came his electoral dis¬ 
trict returned him to Parliament—a warrior 
to wage the factional fight between French- 
and English-speaking Canadians which goes on 
with the years. 

It opened a new life to Ducharme; his 
dreams, the old idealism, came back to him, for 
now there was some promise of fulfilment. 
Spring gave way to summer. Ottawa lost its 


316 PLAYTHINGS OF DESIRE 

air of importance. But Pierre stayed on for 
two weeks after the last session, hopeful that 
some word might come from her. Perhaps she 
had written him at Chicoutimi. With this hope 
to busy him, he hurried home, but there was no 
word for him, only a letter from Anne—a new 
Anne—but he found himself unable to answer 
it. He did not lose faith. Some day, Gloria 
had said! 

Ambition had come with his wider vision, 
and as the summer wore on he roamed the 
woods contracting for pulp wood against the 
day when the paper makers should move 
further north. 

He arose one morning to hear the piping of 
quail. Fall was not far off. Another week 
and the woods and fields were slashed with 
gold and scarlet. He was far east of Lac St. 
John. Another month and he would be getting 
ready to leave Chicoutimi for Ottawa. Weeks 
had passed since he had taken the trail. With 
a glad cry he started back to the river. He 


“I HAVE DUCHARME!” 317 

sang as he covered the long miles. Perhaps 
this time— 

And now he had his reward. The long- 
awaited letter was there to greet him . . . She 
was coming! A day—two days—what did it 
matter ? He had schooled himself to be patient. 
The North had put on its royal dress for her* 
They would go to the falls of the Au Sable 
where he had sung his humble chansons for 
her. The falls of the Au Sable in autumn! 
The packs must be made ready, matters 
arranged with the magistrate, Father Bourchet 
informed. 

No, a day or two did not matter. He, Du- 
charme, had been waiting—always waiting for 
her! 


THE END, 











% 


/ 


I 








r v . 






















✓ 




















* 







♦ 






♦ 




♦ 







§ 



















































































